Thickness-dependent photoelectrochemical properties of a semitransparent Co₃O₄ photocathode

• Malkeshkumar Patel and
• Joondong Kim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2432–2442, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.228

• focused ion beam system (FIB, FEI, Quanta 3D FEG). The elemental compositions in the cross sections of the Co3O4 layers in the working electrode were determined as line profiles by an energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) attachment to the FETEM. Thickness and average surface roughness of the deposited

Hydrothermal-derived carbon as a stabilizing matrix for improved cycling performance of silicon-based anodes for lithium-ion full cells

• Mirco Ruttert,
• Florian Holtstiege,
• Jessica Hüsker,
• Markus Börner,
• Martin Winter and
• Tobias Placke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2381–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.223

• -sections were prepared by a focused ion beam (FIB) milling process using gallium ions extracted from a high brightness liquid metal ion source. Nitrogen adsorption experiments were performed on a 3Flex Physisorption device (Micromeritics GmbH) at the temperature of liquid nitrogen (−196 °C). Before the

• 90:10 sample. The SEM micrographs also show that nearly no Si-NPs are located outside of the matrix, indicating a successful embedding of Si into carbon. To further verify this assumption, the internal structure of the C:Si 80:20 sample was investigated with the help of FIB-SEM and EDX to obtain a

• similarities in shape and size to the Si particles (=white spots) in Figure 2a and 2b can be seen. The EDX mapping results in Figure 2e and 2f also supports the results from the FIB-SEM investigations that Si is homogeneously distributed within the carbon matrix. For comparison reasons, SEM micrographs of a

Directional light beams by design from electrically driven elliptical slit antennas

• Shuiyan Cao,
• Eric Le Moal,
• Quanbo Jiang,
• Aurélien Drezet,
• Serge Huant,
• Jean-Paul Hugonin,
• Gérald Dujardin and
• Elizabeth Boer-Duchemin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2361–2371, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.221

• milled in the gold film using a focused ion beam (FIB) at the NanoFab facility (Institut Néel, Grenoble, France). A scanning electron microscopy image of an elliptical slit is shown in Supporting Information File 1. Schematics of the experiment. A single (a) circular or (b) elliptical slit etched in a

Intrinsic ultrasmall nanoscale silicon turns n-/p-type with SiO₂/Si₃N₄-coating

• Dirk König,
• Daniel Hiller,
• Noël Wilck,
• Birger Berghoff,
• Merlin Müller,
• Sangeeta Thakur,
• Giovanni Di Santo,
• Luca Petaccia,
• Joachim Mayer,
• Sean Smith and
• Joachim Knoch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2255–2264, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.210

• SiO2-layer to facilitate the preparation of cross sections by the focused ion beam technique using a FEI Strata FIB 205 workstation. Some samples were further thinned by means of a Fischione NanoMill. The TEM analysis of the cross sections was performed on a FEI Tecnai F20 TEM operated at 200 kV at the

Dumbbell gold nanoparticle dimer antennas with advanced optical properties

• Janning F. Herrmann and
• Christiane Höppener

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2188–2197, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.205

• spectrograph with coupled CCD camera (Shamrock-303i-A/Newton EMCCD, Andor, Ireland). The recorded spectra are corrected for the backgroung and for the spectrally varying detection efficiency of the CCD chip. SEM/TEM investigations SEM images are recorded with a Zeiss Gemini Crossbeam FIB/SEM with an

High-throughput synthesis of modified Fresnel zone plate arrays via ion beam lithography

• Kahraman Keskinbora,
• Umut Tunca Sanli,
• Margarita Baluktsian,
• Corinne Grévent,
• Markus Weigand and
• Gisela Schütz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2049–2056, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.194

• that relatively large areas can be decorated with nanostructured devices via IBL by using multipurpose SEM/FIB instruments with potential applications in FEL focusing, extreme UV and soft X-ray lithography and as wavefront sensing devices for beam diagnostics. Keywords: extreme ultraviolet (EUV

• ) radiation; focused ion beam (FIB); Fresnel zone plate; ion beam lithography (IBL); nanopatterning; soft X-rays; Introduction Requirements for focusing elements that work at extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray (SXR) energies are very different from those of the more familiar ultraviolet, visible or

• (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB) dual-beam instrument, installed with a lithography attachment (Please see the Experimental section for details). Several exposure, milling or patterning strategies can be adopted in an IBL process. A few such processing procedures relevant to present work are illustrated

Know your full potential: Quantitative Kelvin probe force microscopy on nanoscale electrical devices

• Amelie Axt,
• Ilka M. Hermes,
• Victor W. Bergmann,
• Niklas Tausendpfund and
• Stefan A. L. Weber

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1809–1819, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.172

• compact MAPI capping layer, the hole transport material spiro-OMETAD and a gold electrode. Prior to the measurement the cross section of the solar cell was polished with a focused ion beam (FIB) to minimize topographic crosstalk. The CPD line profiles in a) were extracted from double side band frequency

Magnetic properties of Fe₃O₄ antidot arrays synthesized by AFIR: atomic layer deposition, focused ion beam and thermal reduction

• Juan L. Palma,
• Alejandro Pereira,
• Raquel Álvaro,
• José Miguel García-Martín and
• Juan Escrig

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1728–1734, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.164

• [23] and colloidal [24] lithography, porous anodic alumina [25][26], block copolymer templates [27], nanochannel glass [28] and focused ion beam (FIB) patterning [29][30]. Recently, we have proposed the fabrication of disordered antidot arrays through the thermal reduction of thin films synthesized by

• conditions of synthesis and thermal reduction. Hence, the holes are quite inhomogeneous and appear in disordered form on the sample. Thus, in this article we are interested in introducing a new procedure for obtaining antidot arrays with new properties. The technique is called AFIR (from ALD + FIB

• + reduction), and it consists of the deposition of a thin film by ALD, the generation of holes by means of FIB, and the thermal reduction of the antidot arrays. AFIR opens a new route to manufacture ordered antidot arrays of oxides with variable lattice parameters, arrays that have not been synthesized by

Toward the use of CVD-grown MoS₂ nanosheets as field-emission source

• Geetanjali Deokar,
• Nitul S. Rajput,
• Junjie Li,
• Francis Leonard Deepak,
• Wei Ou-Yang,
• Nicolas Reckinger,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Jean-Francois Colomer and
• Mustapha Jouiad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1686–1694, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.160

• sulfurized Mo films on SiO2/Si substrates was characterized using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) combined with a Helios FEITM NanoLab 650 focused ion beam (FIB) system. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) lamella were prepared using the standard FIB lift-out technique described in an

• earlier report [21]. To have a plane view of the deposited material, the sample was locally capped using FIB-assisted Pt deposition and the cut block was lifted out using an OmniprobeTM. The block was tilted at 90° relative to its original position and mounted onto a TEM grid. The TEM investigations were

Friction force microscopy of tribochemistry and interfacial ageing for the SiO_x/Si/Au system

• Christiane Petzold,
• Marcus Koch and
• Roland Bennewitz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1647–1658, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.157

• thickness that allowed for TEM analysis. The FIB lamella was produced by first depositing a layer of platinum, starting with an electron beam at 2 kV and subsequently using the Ga ion beam at 30 kV until the platinum layer had reached a thickness of about 2.5 µm. The lamella was cut with the Ga ion beam at

• °. TEM images of a cross section through the apex of a Au/Si tip that had been sliding against Au(111). a) Overview showing the Pt protective coating that was added prior to FIB cutting, the Au cantilever coating and the Si bulk. The contact area is worn flat and the asterisk marks an amorphous layer in

• ). Acknowledgements We thank Birgit Heiland from INM for FIB-cutting the AFM tip. This work was financially supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. We acknowledge the continuing support of this project by Eduard Arzt.

Correlative electrochemical strain and scanning electron microscopy for local characterization of the solid state electrolyte Li_1.3Al_0.3Ti_1.7(PO₄)₃

• Nino Schön,
• Deniz Cihan Gunduz,
• Shicheng Yu,
• Hermann Tempel,
• Roland Schierholz and
• Florian Hausen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1564–1572, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.148

• detail, a different preparation method has been employed to obtain a significantly smoother LATP surface. Figure 4 shows an SEM picture of the area on LATP sintered at 1000 °C that was polished by means of a focused ion beam (FIB). Please note that the color contrast is inverted in this case as the SEM

• LATP sample exhibits an RMS roughness of 4.4 nm and 2.7 nm for the regions depicted in Figure 2b and Figure 2d, respectively. However, the sample shown in Figure 4c prepared by FIB exhibits an RMS roughness of only 1.8 nm for a comparable size. Regardless of the curtaining effect, grain boundaries and

• the effect results from a physical deformation of the sample surface induced by the FIB preparation. As expected, grain boundaries display an ESM amplitude signal that is larger than for the secondary phase but smaller than for the primary phase. Significantly more “noise” is observed in Figure 4d and

Nanoporous silicon nitride-based membranes of controlled pore size, shape and areal density: Fabrication as well as electrophoretic and molecular filtering characterization

• Axel Seidenstücker,
• Stefan Beirle,
• Fabian Enderle,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Othmar Marti and
• Alfred Plettl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1390–1398, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.131

• well as FIB-drilled single pores is carried out. Subsequently, molecular filtering as a direct application of our nanoporous membranes is demonstrated: Successful size-selective separation of dye molecules and labeled proteins is observed by real-time fluorescence microscopy. Results and Discussion

• from a miniemulsion technique on commercial SiN membranes, O. Rettich, and C. Pfahler for studying RIE processes. We thank T. Diemant for the XPS measurements, G. Neusser for operating the FIB, K. Altintoprak, H. Gliemann, C. Wege, and S. Nussberger for fruitful discussions, and the latter one also for

A novel copper precursor for electron beam induced deposition

• Caspar Haverkamp,
• George Sarau,
• Mikhail N. Polyakov,
• Ivo Utke,
• Marcos V. Puydinger dos Santos,
• Silke Christiansen and
• Katja Höflich

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1220–1227, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.113

• . Cross-sectional samples from planar deposits for imaging by TEM were prepared by a focused ion beam (FIB) lift-out technique in a Zeiss Crossbeam 340 KMAT. TEM on the cross-sections was performed on a JEOL JEM2200fs CM12. SAED pattern indexing was carried out using CSpot software (CrystOrient

Single-step process to improve the mechanical properties of carbon nanotube yarn

• Maria Cecilia Evora,
• Xinyi Lu,
• Nitilaksha Hiremath,
• Nam-Goo Kang,
• Kunlun Hong,
• Roberto Uribe,
• Gajanan Bhat and
• Jimmy Mays

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 545–554, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.52

• ). CNT yarn is cylindrical and the diameter ranges between 50 a 60 µm. The tensile testing of the yarn samples were kept constant in terms of length of 25.4 mm. The morphology of CNT yarns was investigated using a Zeiss Auriga dual beam focused ion beam (FIB) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) in

• which electron and ion beam can be used simultaneously. The FIB is generated from a gallium liquid metal ion source with resolution of 7 nm at 30 keV acceleration voltages. The e-beam is generated from field emission gun electron source with high resolution SEM 1 nm at 15 keV and 1.9 nm at 1 keV

• between the MWCNTs and the repulsion of functional groups [41]. On the FIB images, it is evident that the simultaneous process proposed in this report occurs inside the fiber structure (Figure 5d,e and Figure 6d,e). Figure 4c,d show FIB images of untreated samples and show a CNT yarn with many open spaces

Al₂O₃/TiO₂ inverse opals from electrosprayed self-assembled templates

• Arnau Coll,
• Sandra Bermejo,
• David Hernández and
• Luís Castañer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 216–223, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.23

• layers of 360 nm polystyrene nanoparticles can be seen. The layer is almost free of defects besides some missing beads that can be identified in the top surface. A focused ion beam (FIB) drill in two orthogonal vertical planes confirms that the order is fully three-dimensional. The total thickness of the

• deposition, TIPT (Sigma-Aldrich) was used as the precursor gas. For the structural characterization, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was employed and an SEM-FIB (NEON 40, Carl Zeiss) was used for the creation of trenches used to inspect inside the samples. In order to assess the quality of the process

Localized growth of carbon nanotubes via lithographic fabrication of metallic deposits

• Fan Tu,
• Martin Drost,
• Imre Szenti,
• Janos Kiss,
• Zoltan Kónya and
• Hubertus Marbach

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2592–2605, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.260

• well-defined configurations for building integrated systems for micro- and nanoelectronics. In this regard, classical methods like optical lithography (OL) [13] and electron beam lithography (EBL) [14], but also focused ion beam (FIB) processing [15], have been successfully applied to fabricate

Direct writing of gold nanostructures with an electron beam: On the way to pure nanostructures by combining optimized deposition with oxygen-plasma treatment

• Domagoj Belić,
• Mostafa M. Shawrav,
• Emmerich Bertagnolli and
• Heinz D. Wanzenboeck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2530–2543, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.253

• widely utilized [8][9][10] due to the growing number of modern scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) which can be combined with focused ion beam (FIB) systems that are equipped with gas injection systems by default. Rather than being merely characterization instruments, such SEMs are now becoming

Comparing postdeposition reactions of electrons and radicals with Pt nanostructures created by focused electron beam induced deposition

• Julie A. Spencer,
• Michael Barclay,
• Miranda J. Gallagher,
• Robert Winkler,
• Ilyas Unlu,
• Yung-Chien Wu,
• Harald Plank,
• Lisa McElwee-White and
• D. Howard Fairbrother

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2410–2424, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.240

• either in situ with electrons or ex situ using AH, and (ii) a FIB Nova 200 dual beam microscope, where deposits were exposed ex situ to AO. Deposition, characterization and treatment of FEBID structures using Auger electron spectroscopy Details of the Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) chamber and its

• -line leveling, surface roughness, profile extraction and 3D rendering was carried out with Pico Image Basic 5.0.2 software. Deposition, characterization and treatment of FEBID structures in the FIB Nova 200 system In these experiments, FEBID was performed on a FIB Nova 200 dual beam microscope (FEI

Magnetic properties of optimized cobalt nanospheres grown by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) on cantilever tips

• Soraya Sangiao,
• César Magén,
• Darius Mofakhami,
• Grégoire de Loubens and
• José María De Teresa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2106–2115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.210

• observation in a specific geometry. Firstly, the cantilever pyramid tip is cut by focused ion beam (FIB) milling and lifted-out by a micromanipulator. Then, the cantilever tip is welded onto a TEM copper grid by a FIB-induced Pt deposition, as illustrated in Figure 3a. Then, the FEBID cobalt nanosphere is

Growth, structure and stability of sputter-deposited MoS₂ thin films

• Reinhard Kaindl,
• Bernhard C. Bayer,
• Roland Resel,
• Thomas Müller,
• Viera Skakalova,
• Gerlinde Habler,
• Rainer Abart,
• Alexey S. Cherevan,
• Dominik Eder,
• Maxime Blatter,
• Fabian Fischer,
• Jannik C. Meyer,
• Dmitry K. Polyushkin and
• Wolfgang Waldhauser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1115–1126, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.113

• focussed-ion-beam (FIB) prepared cross-sections of the PVD MoS2 films. According to the fit of the experimental XRR curves (not shown here) the surface roughness (σsurf) is ≈1.2 nm for the RT film and ≈0.6 nm for films deposited at 400 °C. While the σsurf of the RT films is consistent with the AFM results

• to the target, resulting in voltages around 600 V. Argon 5.0 (nominal purity >99.999%) at a pressure around 6 × 10−2 Pa was used as sputtering gas. Coating thickness was controlled by deposition times estimated from preliminary experiments and cross-checks via XRR measurements and TEM imaging of FIB

• incident angle of αi = 0.13° was chosen to enhance the scattered intensities of the adsorbate. The angular scans have been transferred to scattering vector notation using q = 4πsin(Θ)/λxt. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and focused ion beam (FIB

Vapor deposition routes to conformal polymer thin films

• Priya Moni,
• Ahmed Al-Obeidi and
• Karen K. Gleason

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 723–735, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.76

• difficult. Insufficient Z contrast and charging effects makes SEM cross sections difficult to analyze. Using a focus ion beam (FIB) system to make transmission electron microscopy (TEM) samples is a route often used with inorganic materials. However, ion damage, particularly for very thin films, is an issue

Ion beam profiling from the interaction with a freestanding 2D layer

• Ivan Shorubalko,
• Kyoungjun Choi,
• Michael Stiefel and
• Hyung Gyu Park

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 682–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.73

• , Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Tannenstrasse 3, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland 10.3762/bjnano.8.73 Abstract Recent years have seen a great potential of the focused ion beam (FIB) technology for the nanometer-scale patterning of a

• cascades, featured by no interaction volume. Thus, the patterning resolution is directly set by the beam diameters. Here, we demonstrate pattern resolution beyond the beam size and precise profiling of the focused ion beams. We find out that FIB exposure time of individual pixels can influence the

• normalization of the measured Gaussian profiles, given a total beam current. Interestingly, profiling of unbeknown helium ion beams in this way results in asymmetry of the profile. Even triangular beam shapes are observed at certain helium FIB conditions, possibly attributable to the trimer nature of the beam

Flexible photonic crystal membranes with nanoparticle high refractive index layers

• Torben Karrock,
• Moritz Paulsen and
• Martina Gerken

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 203–209, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.22

• (SEM). The cross-section was created with a focused ion beam (FIB). To protect the cutting edge, a layer of platinum was added on top of the sample. The structure itself is emphasized because of charging effects at the PDMS material border. For optical enhancement dotted guiding lines were drawn into

Grazing-incidence optical magnetic recording with super-resolution

• Gunther Scheunert,
• Sidney. R. Cohen,
• René Kullock,
• Ryan McCarron,
• Katya Rechev,
• Ifat Kaplan-Ashiri,
• Ora Bitton,
• Paul Dawson,
• Bert Hecht and
• Dan Oron

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 28–37, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.4

• -fields antiparallel to the DC field, and thus created a more manageable background. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) cross-sectional imaging was done on a sample lamella prepared via focused ion beam (FIB) of one of the Seagate platters to identify the thin-film layer structure used for modelling

Annealing-induced recovery of indents in thin Au(Fe) bilayer films

• Anna Kosinova,
• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Leonid Klinger and
• Eugen Rabkin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2088–2099, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.199

• ) on the Au (111) reflection. Cross-section samples were prepared in a dual-beam focused ion beam microscope (FIB; FEI Strata 400-S). Appendix Topography evolution of an axisymmetrical indent by surface diffusion (small slope approximation) To check whether surface diffusion alone can lead to indent