A single-source precursor route to anisotropic halogen-doped zinc oxide particles as a promising candidate for new transparent conducting oxide materials

• Daniela Lehr,
• Markus R. Wagner,
• Johanna Flock,
• Julian S. Reparaz,
• Clivia M. Sotomayor Torres,
• Alexander Klaiber,
• Thomas Dekorsy and
• Sebastian Polarz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2161–2172, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.222

• routes in the liquid phase are commonly applied [35][36][37]. Whereas, bottom-up techniques such as the sol–gel process for metal oxides [38][39] work perfectly for the generation of an entire zoo of nanostructures, to realize at the same time intentional doping of those nanostructures is extremely

Effect of SiN_x diffusion barrier thickness on the structural properties and photocatalytic activity of TiO₂ films obtained by sol–gel dip coating and reactive magnetron sputtering

• Mohamed Nawfal Ghazzal,
• Eric Aubry,
• Nouari Chaoui and
• Didier Robert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2039–2045, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.207

• (reactive sputtering) are affected differentially by the intercalating SiNx diffusion barrier. Increasing the thickness of the SiNx diffusion barrier induced a gradual decrease of the crystallite size of TiO2 films obtained by the sol–gel process. However, TiO2 obtained using the reactive sputtering method

• detail elsewhere [14]. Sol–gel dip coating of TiO2/SiNx/SLG The TiO2 films prepared using the sol–gel process is described in detail elsewhere [7]. Briefly, titanium(IV) isopropoxide is used as a precursor to synthesize the TiO2 sol via an acid-catalyzed sol–gel process at room temperature by dissolving

• shows SEM images highlighting the TiO2 film morphology resulting from the sol–gel process and calcination at 450 °C for an increasing SiNx barrier thickness. The surface of the film resulting from the sol−gel method was uniform. The average grain size was about 30−50 nm when a TiO2 film was directly

Silica micro/nanospheres for theranostics: from bimodal MRI and fluorescent imaging probes to cancer therapy

• Shanka Walia and
• Amitabha Acharya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 546–558, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.57

• of dopant ions in a nanoparticle environment. Thus these new classes of materials can be used as potential fluorescent probes for biomedical imaging. Singh et al. [16] reported the synthesis of luminescent YVO4:Eu3+ NPs incorporated inside mesoporous silica NPs through a sol–gel process. The

• . In a similar way, Yan and Shao [35] reported a sol–gel process for the synthesis of lanthanide-activated magnetic silica nanostructures conjugated with polymer-modified zinc oxide NPs. The 2-hydroxyethyl-methacrylate-modified ZnO NPs and oleic-acid-functionalized iron oxide NPs were incorporated

• nanocomposites suggested the presence of the aggregates inside the cells. Kim et al. [48] reported the synthesis of magnetic and fluorescent NPs, encapsulated inside silica through a sol–gel process. The synthesis involved the encapsulation of oleic acid-capped magnetite NPs and CdSe/ZnS QDs, inside the silica

Synergic combination of the sol–gel method with dip coating for plasmonic devices

• Cristiana Figus,
• Maddalena Patrini,
• Francesco Floris,
• Lucia Fornasari,
• Paola Pellacani,
• Gerardo Marchesini,
• Andrea Valsesia,
• Flavia Artizzu,
• Daniela Marongiu,
• Michele Saba,
• Franco Marabelli,
• Andrea Mura,
• Giovanni Bongiovanni and
• Francesco Quochi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 500–507, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.52

• a fine control of the layer thickness and of the matrix properties is critical. In this sense, many parameters affect the sol–gel mechanism reaction [23][24][25][26] and, therefore, the sol–gel process and the deposition technique should be optimized. To the best of our knowledge, few examples

• uniformity were evaluated and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) was employed as the main characterization technique to evaluate the film thickness. The film thickness was monitored as a function of different processing parameters, namely, pH, aging time, EtOH dilution, and withdrawal speed. The sol–gel process

Biopolymer colloids for controlling and templating inorganic synthesis

• Laura C. Preiss,
• Katharina Landfester and
• Rafael Muñoz-Espí

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2129–2138, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.222

• further used for silicates. Zhang et al. [90] presented the in situ formation of silica in a cellulose aerogel (Figure 8). The addition of the silicate precursor (TEOS) takes place first, followed by a sol–gel process and the cellulose/silica composite formation. The aerogel is formed by drying with

• . Reprinted with permission from [87]. Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons. Schematic representation of aerogel preparation. A nanoporous cellulose gel is impregnated with the silica precursor TEOS (a). Afterwards, the silica formation takes place by sol–gel process (hydrolysis and condensation), yielding a

• synthetic polymers (see Section 4 in [60] for a review), but only a limited number of works are found for biopolymers. Li et al. [61] prepared cross-linked chitosan microspheres and immobilized bovine serum albumin covalently on their surface. On the resulting particles, silica was formed by a sol–gel

Towards bottom-up nanopatterning of Prussian blue analogues

• Virgile Trannoy,
• Marco Faustini,
• David Grosso,
• Sandra Mazerat,
• François Brisset,
• Alexandre Dazzi and
• Anne Bleuzen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1933–1943, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.204

• between hexacyanometalates and hydrated cations of the transition metal series in aqueous solution. The resulting solid exhibits the well-known face centered cubic structure of Prussian blue [9]. The sol–gel process is a method for producing metal oxides from small molecules via inorganic polymerization

Template-directed synthesis and characterization of microstructured ceramic Ce/ZrO₂@SiO₂ composite tubes

• Jörg J. Schneider and
• Meike Naumann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1152–1159, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.126

• employed in the sol–gel process and results in a calculated Ce0.13/Zr0.87O2 phase composition. No signals of crystalline phases of SiO2 were detected. The composition is in accordance with the molar ratio Ce/Zr employed in the synthetic spray-coating procedure. It is known that the substitution of Ce4

Characterization and photocatalytic study of tantalum oxide nanoparticles prepared by the hydrolysis of tantalum oxo-ethoxide Ta₈(μ₃-O)₂(μ-O)₈(μ-OEt)₆(OEt)₁₄

• Subia Ambreen,
• N D Pandey,
• Peter Mayer and
• Ashutosh Pandey

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1082–1090, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.121

• the organic dye rhodamine B. Keywords: bandgap; tantalum-oxo-ethoxide; Tauc plot; tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5); Introduction Metal alkoxides, being excellent precursors in the sol–gel process for preparation of metal oxides have attained huge attention of researchers. Several attempts have been made

Photocatalytic antibacterial performance of TiO₂ and Ag-doped TiO₂ against S. aureus. P. aeruginosa and E. coli

• Kiran Gupta,
• R. P. Singh,
• Ashutosh Pandey and
• Anjana Pandey

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 345–351, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.40

• -catalyzed sol–gel process [23] starting from titanium(IV) tetrabutoxide (2.94 mM) and using 5 mL of water (pH 2) in the presence of toluene as solvent containing 1% aerosol-OT (reverse micelles) under stirring for 1 h: After gelation, the gel was dried at 100 °C in an oven for 24 h; white TiO2 nanosized

• particles (crude sample) were obtained. To obtain crystalline particles, samples were annealed at 450 °C for 30 min. Preparation of Ag-doped TiO2 nanoparticles Ag-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles were synthesized by using an acid-catalyzed sol–gel process starting from titanium(IV) tetrabutoxide (2.94

Functionalization of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes

• Eloise Van Hooijdonk,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Rony Snyders and
• Jean-François Colomer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 129–152, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.14

• salts diluted in alcoholic solutions; however, stable solutions by using surfactants [38] or applying a sol–gel process [39] can be also used. The main disadvantage of the chemical method is the difficulty of optimizing the catalyst solution. The template-based approach in which the catalysts are

Self-assembled monolayers and titanium dioxide: From surface patterning to potential applications

• Yaron Paz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 845–861, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.94

• photoactive anatase phase at temperatures lower than 100 °C, compared with 300–350 °C required in the sol–gel process, or with 170–240 °C required in the TiCl4 process performed under vacuum [39]. Meanwhile, other low-temperature processes for producing anatase, such as the titanyl sulfate route [40], have

Novel acridone-modified MCM-41 type silica: Synthesis, characterization and fluorescence tuning

• Maximilian Hemgesberg,
• Gunder Dörr,
• Yvonne Schmitt,
• Andreas Seifert,
• Zhou Zhou,
• Robin Klupp Taylor,
• Sarah Bay,
• Stefan Ernst,
• Markus Gerhards,
• Thomas J. J. Müller and
• Werner R. Thiel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 284–292, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.33

• causes them to be less readily dissolved and requires larger amounts of solvents, which are mostly immiscible with water. Therefore, pure TEOS was tested as a mediating agent for introduction into the sol–gel process. It turned out to be beneficial for the co-condensation process that precursor 1 could

• to the TEM analysis (Figure 3) and BET measurements (Figure 4), the sol–gel process yielded a well ordered mesoporous material with a total surface area of up to 810 m2·g−1, exhibiting a characteristic pore size distribution with a sharp peak around 2.4 nm. The XRD spectrum reveals the expected peak

• molar ratios of the precursors in the sol–gel process are to be investigated in the near future. Furthermore, efforts will be made to elucidate the optical properties of the materials after doping with lanthanides or heavy metal cations, e.g. Eu(III), Er(III) or Bi(III). Experimental General: All