Recent progress in perovskite solar cells: the perovskite layer

• Xianfeng Dai,
• Ke Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 51–60, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.5

• films Benefiting from the advances of various film deposition techniques, such as one-step spin coating [13][21], two-step sequential solution deposition [22][23] and inkjet printing fabrication [24][25], unprecedented progress in the improvement of the efficiency of PSCs has been made. To obtain high

• deposition approach based on one-step spin coating, which involves dripping a noncoordinate solvent such as toluene, chlorobenzene, dichlorobenzene or trifluorotoluene onto the perovskite film while spinning. This method has shown to produce extremely smooth and homogeneous perovskite films. PSCs with a PCE

• development of large-scale semi-transparent PSCs with large area, having diverse applications in the field of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs) or as top cells for tandem devices. It has become a problem that a considerable amount of toxic Pb-containing material is discarded during the spin coating

Semitransparent Sb₂S₃ thin film solar cells by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis for use in solar windows

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Lothar Weinhardt,
• Monika Blum,
• Clemens Heske,
• Wanli Yang,
• Ilona Oja Acik and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2396–2409, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.230

• thin film when it is grown by CBD from an aqueous solution [18]. In 2018, PCE ≈ 5.7% was achieved for a cell based on a spin-coated Sb2S3 absorber, and the same group further increased the PCE of this cell to 6.4% by Zn doping during spin-coating of Sb2S3 [39][40]. Soon after, by doping Sb2S3 with CsOH

• , the PCE of planar Sb2S3 solar cells was boosted from 4.3% to 6.6% [41]. When looking forward to mass production on meter-sized substrates, however, spin-coating cannot be upscaled due to design limitations [42]. Industrialization is feasible only for low-cost, upscalable methods, to the detriment of

Polyvinylpyrrolidone as additive for perovskite solar cells with water and isopropanol as solvents

• Chen Du,
• Shuo Wang,
• Xu Miao,
• Wenhai Sun,
• Yu Zhu,
• Chengyan Wang and
• Ruixin Ma

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2374–2382, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.228

• . Device fabrication Prior to spin-coating, the ITO glass substrate was cleaned sequentially with detergent, acetone, ethanol, deionized water, each for 15 min, then dried with a nitrogen flow, and then cleaned with UV/ozone for 20 min. A thin layer of SnO2 nanoparticles was spin-coated on the ITO

• substrate at 4000 rpm for 30 s and annealed at 150 °C for 10 min, then treated with UV/ozone for 20 min. The Pb(NO3)2 layer was prepared by spin-coating an aqueous Pb(NO3)2 solution (the concentration of Pb(NO3)2 was 1.0 M, doped with 0, 0.5, 1, 2, or 3 mg/mL PVP) at 4000 rpm for 20 s and annealed at 100 °C

• –oxygen bond to be reduced. Based on the analysis conducted above, the main reaction process is illustrated in Figure 6d. Firstly, Pb(NO3)2 is combined with PVP in aqueous solution. Following spin-coating, a film of a Pb-PVP phase forms. During the immersion in MAX solution, PVP combines with Pb(NO3)2 to

Nontoxic pyrite iron sulfide nanocrystals as second electron acceptor in PTB7:PC₇₁BM-based organic photovoltaic cells

• Olivia Amargós-Reyes,
• José-Luis Maldonado,
• Omar Martínez-Alvarez,
• María-Elena Nicho,
• José Santos-Cruz,
• Juan Nicasio-Collazo,
• Irving Caballero-Quintana and
• Concepción Arenas-Arrocena

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2238–2250, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.216

• thickness and morphology of the devices [32][35]. Spin-coating is one of the most widely used techniques for active layer deposition that provides a small active area film with a low root-mean-squared roughness of about 1–3 nm [36]. It has been proved that, with the incorporation of a third component in the

Microbubbles decorated with dendronized magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical imaging: effective stabilization via fluorous interactions

• Da Shi,
• Justine Wallyn,
• Dinh-Vu Nguyen,
• Francis Perton,
• Delphine Felder-Flesch,
• Sylvie Bégin-Colin,
• Mounir Maaloum and
• Marie Pierre Krafft

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2103–2115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.205

• dendronized IONPs are incorporated within the DPPC shell of the MBs or located at the surface of the shell (Figure 8), mixed films composed of phospholipid and nanoparticles were prepared by spin-coating on silicon wafers. The morphology of the films was investigated by AFM in the peak–force tapping mode. We

• dendronized IONPs Thin films of DPPC, dendronized IONPs and DPPC/dendronized IONP mixtures were prepared by spin-coating on silicon wafers [49]. To this end, a dispersion of dendronized IONPs in water (1 mg L−1) was freeze-dried and then dissolved in ethanol for preparing a dispersion with a concentration of

Growth dynamics and light scattering of gold nanoparticles in situ synthesized at high concentration in thin polymer films

• Corentin Guyot,
• Philippe Vandestrick,
• Ingrid Marenne,
• Olivier Deparis and
• Michel Voué

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1768–1777, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.172

• values of Ψ and Δ are reported in Figure 10 as functions of the time. The behavior of the sample is complex during the first 10 min of annealing. During that period, the temperature rises from room temperature to 135 °C. We expect the mechanical constraints induced by the spin-coating to relax as soon as

Precise local control of liquid crystal pretilt on polymer layers by focused ion beam nanopatterning

• Maxim V. Gorkunov,
• Irina V. Kasyanova,
• Vladimir V. Artemov,
• Alena V. Mamonova and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1691–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.164

• display-quality glass substrates covered with ca. 150 nm thin transparent ITO electrodes. Polyimide (PI) is deposited onto the substrates by a conventional routine combining a precursor spin-coating and annealing at 190 °C for 1 h, which produces a mechanically robust PI layer of 10–20 nm thickness. Next

Development of a new hybrid approach combining AFM and SEM for the nanoparticle dimensional metrology

• Loïc Crouzier,
• Alexandra Delvallée,
• Sébastien Ducourtieux,
• Laurent Devoille,
• Guillaume Noircler,
• Christian Ulysse,
• Olivier Taché,
• Elodie Barruet,
• Christophe Tromas and
• Nicolas Feltin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1523–1536, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.150

• silicon substrates through the spin-coating method detailed in [11]. This method yields well-dispersed nanoparticles on the substrate while maximizing the number of isolated NPs preventing agglomeration of the NPs. NP SEM images have been recorded using a Zeiss ULTRA-Plus field-emission (FE) microscope

Angle-dependent structural colors in a nanoscale-grating photonic crystal fabricated by reverse nanoimprint technology

• Xu Zheng,
• Qing Wang,
• Jinjin Luan,
• Yao Li,
• Ning Wang and
• Rui Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1211–1216, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.120

• solution was firstly poured onto the PC mould after degassing; (2) the PDMS film was fabricated through spin-coating at a speed of 500 rpm; (3) the photonic crystal was fabricated by reverse imprinting with the parameters of 0.5 MPa and 80 °C for 4 h to complete filling and cross-linking; (4) the photonic

Electroluminescence and current–voltage measurements of single-(In,Ga)N/GaN-nanowire light-emitting diodes in a nanowire ensemble

• David van Treeck,
• Johannes Ledig,
• Gregor Scholz,
• Jonas Lähnemann,
• Mattia Musolino,
• Abbes Tahraoui,
• Oliver Brandt,
• Andreas Waag,
• Henning Riechert and
• Lutz Geelhaar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1177–1187, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.117

• around 100 nm. Figure 1a shows a micrograph of the as-grown NW ensemble acquired in a Hitachi S-4800 field-emission SEM. The NW-ensemble LED we use as a reference for the EL and I–V characterizations in this study was processed from the same sample. The NW ensemble was planarized by spin coating using a

Ultrathin hydrophobic films based on the metal organic framework UiO-66-COOH(Zr)

• Miguel A. Andrés,
• Clemence Sicard,
• Christian Serre,
• Olivier Roubeau and
• Ignacio Gascón

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 654–665, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.65

• homogeneity [11]. Therefore, several strategies have been used for the deposition of MOF films [12], including direct growth [13][14], electrochemical deposition [15], inkjet-printing [16], dip-coating [17], layer-by-layer [18][19][20], Langmuir–Blodgett [21][22], chemical vapor deposition [23], spin-coating

Uniform Sb₂S₃ optical coatings by chemical spray method

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Ilona Oja Acik,
• Arvo Mere and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 198–210, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.18

• chemical bath deposition (CBD) [3][4], spin coating [5], atomic layer deposition (ALD) [6] or chemical spray pyrolysis (CSP) [7] method, has been applied in extremely thin absorber (ETA) solar cells due to its excellent absorption coefficient in the visible light spectrum (1.8 × 105 cm−1 at 450 nm) [1][2

• –Weber island growth of amorphous Sb2S3 (and in some cases leaf-like grains of polycrystalline Sb2S3) have been observed in Sb2S3 layers grown by chemical bath deposition on glass [47][48], In2O3/Sn (ITO) [49], planar TiO2 [16] and TiO2 nanotube arrays [50], by sequential deposition [51] and spin coating

Zn/F-doped tin oxide nanoparticles synthesized by laser pyrolysis: structural and optical properties

• Florian Dumitrache,
• Iuliana P. Morjan,
• Elena Dutu,
• Ion Morjan,
• Claudiu Teodor Fleaca,
• Monica Scarisoreanu,
• Alina Ilie,
• Marius Dumitru,
• Cristian Mihailescu,
• Adriana Smarandache and
• Gabriel Prodan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 9–21, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.2

• .) antimony by spray pyrolysis [9] or by sol–gel methods followed by spin-coating and annealing in different environments [10], ii.) manganese by long-time annealing of Mn/SnO2 bilayers in air at 200 °C [11] or by co-precipitation [12], iii.) aluminum, copper or indium all by spray pyrolysis from ethanolic

• solutions [13] and iv.) iron by laser pyrolysis [14][15] or by electron beam evaporation [16]. Cobalt-doped tin oxide has also been reported, and the resulting polycrystalline films were prepared by spin-coating and annealing from chloride ethanolic solutions resulted in lower bandgap values than pure SnO2

• measurements can help in engineering so that Zn/F-doped SnO2 can be considered as a typical transparent conducting oxide (TCO) suitable for solar cell applications. Thin films were prepared from the as-synthesized powders using spin-coating and found to have an apparent density of around 0.8 g/cm3. The

Femtosecond laser-assisted fabrication of chalcopyrite micro-concentrator photovoltaics

• Franziska Ringleb,
• Stefan Andree,
• Berit Heidmann,
• Jörn Bonse,
• Katharina Eylers,
• Owen Ernst,
• Torsten Boeck,
• Martina Schmid and
• Jörg Krüger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 3025–3038, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.281

• electrical and high thermal conductivity, the photoresist SU8 was used for this purpose. In order to apply the photoresist, a precursor solution was distributed evenly on the sample via spin coating (Figure 12b). Subsequently, this solution was photochemically converted into SU8 and cured by means of thermal

• . The advantage of the spin-coating approach is that the insulating layer not only covers the molybdenum substrate, but also fills cavities or holes that might form sporadically within the islands and that would lead to power leakage in a lithography-based isolation approach. Characterization of solar

• created, site-controlled via femtosecond-laser treatment, which were subsequently processed to microabsorbers. For further processing to microcells, a pathway was demonstrated, in which an isolation concept based on spin coating was applied. The advantage of this approach is that imperfections can be

Electrostatic force microscopy for the accurate characterization of interphases in nanocomposites

• Diana El Khoury,
• Richard Arinero,
• Jean-Charles Laurentie,
• Mikhaël Bechelany,
• Michel Ramonda and
• Jérôme Castellon

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2999–3012, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.279

• nm) were deposited or grown over the whole sample surface. Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) shells were prepared using the atomic layer deposition (ALD) method, polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) shells by spin coating, and silicon dioxide (SiO2) shells by plasma sputtering deposition (PSD). The signature of each

• ]. In fact, as our samples were highly rough owing to the sub-micrometer PS spheres, spin-coating could not produce uniformly thin films [37]. However, this did not affect our study because the EFM results were compared at the center of the particles. Concerning the EFM signals, the average values

• ) using the self-assembly property of PS spheres [49][50][51]. In this work, a more precise experimental protocol than the one used in our previous work [28] was chosen to deposit the particles by spin coating [52][53]. The initial PS sphere solution was mixed with ethanol (1:1 ratio) and kept in an

Layered calcium phenylphosphonate: a hybrid material for a new generation of nanofillers

• Kateřina Kopecká,
• Ludvík Beneš,
• Klára Melánová,
• Vítězslav Zima,
• Petr Knotek and
• Kateřina Zetková

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2906–2915, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.269

• CaPhP_exf prepared by spin coating on the glass support (A) and XRD pattern of free film with exfoliated filler CaPhP_exf_0.5 (B). Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (project No. TH02020201).

Charged particle single nanometre manufacturing

• Philip D. Prewett,
• Cornelis W. Hagen,
• Claudia Lenk,
• Steve Lenk,
• Marcus Kaestner,
• Tzvetan Ivanov,
• Ahmad Ahmad,
• Ivo W. Rangelow,
• Xiaoqing Shi,
• Stuart A. Boden,
• Alex P. G. Robinson,
• Dongxu Yang,
• Sangeetha Hari,
• Marijke Scotuzzi and
• Ejaz Huq

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2855–2882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.266

• previously to be suitable for electron beam lithography [38]. Derivatisation of the fullerene renders it soluble in common spin-coating solvents. A number of different fullerene derivatives have been spin-coated and patterned using electron beam lithography [38][39]. An ultrathin-film, ultrahigh-resolution

Nanostructure-induced performance degradation of WO₃·nH₂O for energy conversion and storage devices

• Zhenyin Hai,
• Mohammad Karbalaei Akbari,
• Zihan Wei,
• Danfeng Cui,
• Chenyang Xue,
• Hongyan Xu,
• Philippe M. Heynderickx,
• Francis Verpoort and
• Serge Zhuiykov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2845–2854, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.265

• deionized water to a total volume of 12.5 mL accompanied by another 15 min of stirring. The prepared seed solution was spin-coated onto FTO/glass at 3000 rpm for four times with each step consisting of 40 s spin-coating at room temperature followed by annealing at 350 °C for 20 min. The as-prepared FTO

High-throughput micro-nanostructuring by microdroplet inkjet printing

• Hendrikje R. Neumann and
• Christine Selhuber-Unkel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2372–2380, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.222

• surfaces by a dip-coating or spin-coating process. Using this method, the spacing of the nanoparticles is controlled by the size of the micelles and by the coating conditions. Whereas block copolymer micelle nanolithography is a high-throughput method for generating well-ordered nanoparticle patterns at

• spacing between a few tens to several hundreds of nanometers is block copolymer micelle nanolithography (BCML) [8]. This technique is based on the self-assembly of metal-containing micelles on surfaces during dip-coating or spin-coating. BCML is very efficient in coating large areas with nanoparticles in

• quasi-hexagonal arrays. The spacing between the nanoparticles is controlled by the block copolymer used for forming the micelles and by the coating conditions, e.g., spin-coating and dip-coating parameters. BCML has been realized for preparing arrays of different types of nanoparticles, including gold

Magnetism and magnetoresistance of single Ni–Cu alloy nanowires

• Andreea Costas,
• Camelia Florica,
• Elena Matei,
• Maria Eugenia Toimil-Molares,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Andrei Kuncser,
• Victor Kuncser and
• Ionut Enculescu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2345–2355, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.219

• with a poly(methyl methacrylate) film deposited by spin coating; (d) irradiation of the polymer layer for contacting the ends of the nanowire with the interdigitated metallic electrode; (e) SEM images of a single Ni–Cu alloy nanowire contacted using EBL. Supporting Information Supporting Information

Block copolymers for designing nanostructured porous coatings

• Roberto Nisticò

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2332–2344, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.218

• close-packed spherical system was obtained by solvent evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA) process. Different pore sizes can be obtained by changing the block length in the soft templates. By coupling the spin-coating deposition technique with the soft-templating approach, mesoporous silica coatings

• also be produced by spin-coating deposition followed by calcination in order to obtain a nanostructured titania layer [106]. The thermal degradation of the organic polymeric template was successfully achieved without causing a collapse of the titania nanoarchitecture. The driving force behind these

• nanoparticles (produced by using PS-b-PEO block copolymers as templates) are deposited via spin-coating onto a macroporous silicon-based substrate, forming a depth-filtering system (i.e., interparticle voids of 15–200 nm). In order to evaluate the selectivity of this porous membrane, two cationic (macro

Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2209–2235, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.207

• role in the efficiency of the solar cells based on this light harvester. This fact stimulated a screening of suitable solvents and deposition conditions, revealing dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) as one of the most promising candidates for spin-coating deposition technology [113][114], which produced uniform

• ) in an inverted cell with a fullerene ETL [144]. The combination of Sn2+ and Ge2+ in single HPs results in solid-solution CH3NH3Sn(1−x)GexI3 compounds with a bandgap tunable from 1.3 eV (x = 0) to 2.0 eV (x = 1) [146]. A Mn2+-based analog of MAPI was produced by the spin-coating of a mixture of MnI2

• mV/s). A hysteresis-free cell was also constructed by combining the single-crystalline MABI with a P3HT HTL [85]. A layer of CsBi3I10 perovskite deposited by a conventional spin-coating/drying method on top of gold electrodes demonstrated a high photoresponse in the range of λ < 700 nm [169]. The

Spin-coated planar Sb₂S₃ hybrid solar cells approaching 5% efficiency

• Pascal Kaienburg,
• Benjamin Klingebiel and
• Thomas Kirchartz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2114–2124, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.200

• demonstrated an efficiency exceeding 7% when assembled in an extremely thin absorber configuration deposited via chemical bath deposition. More recently, less complex, planar geometries were obtained from simple spin-coating approaches, but the device efficiency still lags behind. We compare two processing

• , spin-coating of different antimony- and sulfur-containing precursors was proposed [29][36][37]. A metal-organic complex is formed in solution which is then spin-coated and afterwards thermally decomposed. Just like for CBD [2][41] or ALD [22][32] the resulting amorphous film needs to be annealed at

• visible. For better comparison, SEM images of substrates without Sb2S3 can be found in Figure S1, Supporting Information File 1. The morphology is improved by annealing the films at 100 °C directly after spin-coating for approximately 60 minutes prior to thermal decomposition at 180 °C. Figure 2b shows

Self-assembled quasi-hexagonal arrays of gold nanoparticles with small gaps for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

• Emre Gürdal,
• Simon Dickreuter,
• Fatima Noureddine,
• Pascal Bieschke,
• Dieter P. Kern and
• Monika Fleischer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1977–1985, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.188

• /mL and stirred for 2 days. The micelles were loaded with chlorauric acid (HAuCl4, loading parameter (L = 0.5), Sigma-Aldrich) and stirred again for 2 days. Spin-coating was applied to cover the substrate with a monolayer of the gold-loaded micelles (30 s at 2000 rpm). Electroless deposition A quartz

• duration of the process [18]. A schematic overview of the fabrication process is shown in Figure 1. In a first step a silicon substrate is coated with gold-loaded polymer micelles (Figure 1a) via spin-coating. In a second step the micelles are exposed to deep UV illumination while the substrate is covered

• silicon substrate: (a) Gold nanoparticles with block copolymer micelles after spin-coating. (b) Deep UV illumination with water and a quartz glass on top of the substrate. (c) Electroless deposition. (d) Substrate after oxygen plasma, which removes the organic components. SEM images of the gold precursor

Nanocomposites comprised of homogeneously dispersed magnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles and poly(methyl methacrylate)

• Sašo Gyergyek,
• David Pahovnik,
• Ema Žagar,
• Alenka Mertelj,
• Rok Kostanjšek,
• Miloš Beković,
• Marko Jagodič,
• Heinrich Hofmann and
• Darko Makovec

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1613–1622, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.153

• enable the preparation of nanocomposite films by spin coating and the precipitation of a nanocomposite in a form that is easily milled into powders, for example. Therefore, it is desirable to develop synthesis methods to prepare them. In this paper we present a simple method for preparing magnetic iron