Filling nanopipettes with apertures smaller than 50 nm: dynamic microdistillation

• Evelyne Salançon and
• Bernard Tinland

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2181–2187, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.204

• is recorded at the same time. The first measurement is made directly after the first electrolyte loading at a concentration of [KCl] = 10−4 mol·L−1. This first electrical measurement confirms that the nanopipette is filled: The current flows and ion exchange is ensured between the Ag/AgCl electrodes

• and ICR (intensity current rectification) ratio of ICR500 = I−500mV/I+500mV = 1.53 at [KCl] = 10−4 mol·L−1 are comparable with previously measured values. This confirms that the proposed filling technique is reliable. Conclusion The successful filling of 100% of nanopipettes using dynamic

• ). It is very thin, elongated and bent at its tip with a hole of dtip = 11 nm. Typical I(V) measurements with pClamp: I and V are recorded as a function of the time. [KCl] = 10−4 mol·L−1 and the geometrical nanopipette characteristics are rtip = 13 nm, θ = 9° and ltip = 15 mm. (a) The first measurement

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

• (Supporting Information File 1, details in the text and Figure S1). Subsequently, the chambers were filled with a KCl electrolyte and the conductance was determined by applying dc voltages to the Ag/AgCl electrodes and automated current measurements. The results of the according experiments on the membranes A

• pores the calculated total contribution of the pores Rpore·N−1 sums up to 1 kΩ (for 1 mM KCl). This resistance value is 200 times smaller than the resistance Rsetup of the complete microfluidic setup without membrane. Therefore, differences of the resistances of the membranes A, B and C due to their

• . Diameter distributions for the Au NP etch mask (green) and the resulting nanopores of membrane C on the front side (black) and on the back side (red). Vertical bars represent experimental data to which the shaded Gaussians were fitted. Ionic transport measured through the three membranes A, B and C for KCl

Semi-automatic spray pyrolysis deposition of thin, transparent, titania films as blocking layers for dye-sensitized and perovskite solar cells

• Hana Krýsová,
• Josef Krýsa and
• Ladislav Kavan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1135–1145, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.105

• controlled by the NOVA software. The TiO2 thin film on FTO was the working electrode, the reference electrode was Ag/AgCl (3 M KCl) and a platinum rod was used as the counter electrode. The TiO2 films were illuminated from the front side by a Hg lamp (Oriel), and the TiO2 film area (1 cm2) was defined by a

• -electrochemical experiments [14]. The blocking properties of the deposited layers were evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) in aqueous electrolyte solution composed of 0.5 mM K4[Fe(CN)6], 0.5 mM K3[Fe(CN)6] in 0.5 M KCl, pH 2.5. Results and Discussion To optimize the SPD conditions, we initially tested the effect

• ), dark/light intervals of 10 s were applied. Cyclic voltammograms on an uncoated FTO(A) electrode and one covered by TiO2 films consisting of 100 SCs of TAA (0.05 M). Scan rate 50 mV/s. Electrolyte solution was 0.5 mM Fe(CN)63−/4− in aqueous 0.5 M KCl, pH 2.5. The voltammograms (except for FTO) are

Cyclodextrin inhibits zinc corrosion by destabilizing point defect formation in the oxide layer

• Abdulrahman Altin,
• Maciej Krzywiecki,
• Adnan Sarfraz,
• Cigdem Toparli,
• Claudius Laska,
• Philipp Kerger,
• Aleksandar Zeradjanin,
• Karl J. J. Mayrhofer,
• Michael Rohwerder and
• Andreas Erbe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 936–944, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.86

• . Increasing the β-CD concentration decreased Ecorr in the steady phase. Figure 1b (i) shows the state of the surface after exposure to 0.1 M KCl. In the presence of β-CD [Figure 1b (ii)], no precipitated corrosion products are visible. Comparison to the surface morphology before electrochemical experiments

• (Supporting Information File 1, Figure S1) shows that this morphology is retained after exposure to the electrolyte. The inhibition efficiencies η (Figure 1c), based on EIS data (Supporting Information File 1, Figure S2, Figure S3 and Table S1), show that with only 19 μM of β-CD in KCl, an inhibition

• efficiency of ≈75% is achieved. With an increase of β-CD concentration in the electrolyte, a further increase of η was observed. A maximum efficiency of ≈85% was found in the presence of 33 mM β-CD in the 0.1 M KCl solution. Overall, η ≈ 80% over a large concentration range. The impact of β-CD on the zinc

Wafer-scale bioactive substrate patterning by chemical lift-off lithography

• Chong-You Chen,
• Chang-Ming Wang,
• Hsiang-Hua Li,
• Hong-Hseng Chan and
• Wei-Ssu Liao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 311–320, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.31

• (TRIS) and tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine (TCEP) were obtained from Acros Organics (Geel, Belgium). Bovine serum albumin (BSA), and 10× phosphate buffered saline (PBS) containing 1.37 M NaCl, 0.027 M KCl, 0.10 M Na2HPO4, and 0.018 M KH2PO4 were purchased from Bioman Scientific Co., Ltd (Taipei, Taiwan

• exposed area of 0.28 cm2), an Ag/AgCl (3 M KCl) reference electrode, and a Pt wire counter electrode. CV measurements were carried out with 1 mM [Ru(NH3)6]3+ in 25 mM TRIS buffer (pH 7.4) at a scan rate of 100 mV/s. Target capture. For binding partner recognition, the substrates were rinsed with 25 mM

The nanofluidic confinement apparatus: studying confinement-dependent nanoparticle behavior and diffusion

• Stefan Fringes,
• Felix Holzner and
• Armin W. Knoll

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 301–310, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.30

• increase adhesion for the subsequently spin coated 175 ± 2 nm thick poly-phthalaldehyde (PPA) film. The thicknesses were measured with AFM. The refractive indices nHM = 1.67 and nPPA = 1.59 were measured by ellipsometry. The surface potential of PPA in 1 mM KCl solution (pH 7–7.5) was measured in a Malvern

One-step chemical vapor deposition synthesis and supercapacitor performance of nitrogen-doped porous carbon–carbon nanotube hybrids

• Egor V. Lobiak,
• Lyubov G. Bulusheva,
• Ekaterina O. Fedorovskaya,
• Yury V. Shubin,
• Pavel E. Plyusnin,
• Pierre Lonchambon,
• Boris V. Senkovskiy,
• Zinfer R. Ismagilov,
• Emmanuel Flahaut and
• Alexander V. Okotrub

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2669–2679, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.267

• suspension (62%) as a binder. The mixture was prepared using a mortar and pestle, before being rolled out into a 40 µm film, which was dried at room temperature. An Ag/AgCl electrode filled with a saturated KCl aqueous solution was used as the reference electrode and Pt foil was used as the counter electrode

Patterning of supported gold monolayers via chemical lift-off lithography

• Liane S. Slaughter,
• Kevin M. Cheung,
• Sami Kaappa,
• Huan H. Cao,
• Qing Yang,
• Thomas D. Young,
• Andrew C. Serino,
• Sami Malola,
• Jana M. Olson,
• Stephan Link,
• Hannu Häkkinen,
• Anne M. Andrews and
• Paul S. Weiss

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2648–2661, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.265

• solutions. Immediately prior to experiments, the DNA stock solutions were diluted 1:100 with 1× phosphate buffered saline (PBS) ([NaCl] = 138 mM, [KCl] = 2.7 mM, and [MgCl2] = 5 mM) pH 7.4 (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) to make 1 µM solutions. The patterns of Au–alkanethiolate monolayers on flat PDMS

Hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO quantum dot/KNb₃O₈ nanosheet photocatalysts for reducing carbon dioxide to methanol

• Xiao Shao,
• Weiyue Xin and
• Xiaohong Yin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2264–2270, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.226

• ] synthesized rod-like KNb3O8 by using KCl, K2CO3, and Nb2O5 by calcination at 800 °C for 3 h. Zhan et al. [20] prepared the single-crystalline KNb3O8 nanobelts via a molten salt method and investigated its photocatalytic performance in degradation of methyl orange under UV irradiation. To the best of our

Carbon nano-onions as fluorescent on/off modulated nanoprobes for diagnostics

• Stefania Lettieri,
• Marta d’Amora,
• Adalberto Camisasca,
• Alberto Diaspro and
• Silvia Giordani

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1878–1888, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.188

• of independent measurements. The CNO samples were dispersed to a final concentration of 1 mg mL−1 in PBS 0.01 M (PBS pH 7.4, composition 0.14 M NaCl, 0.0027 M KCl, 0.010 M PO43−) The samples were sonicated for 10 min at 37 kHz and then diluted in 0.01 M PBS to achieve a final concentration of 5 μg mL

Adsorption and electronic properties of pentacene on thin dielectric decoupling layers

• Sebastian Koslowski,
• Daniel Rosenblatt,
• Alexander Kabakchiev,
• Klaus Kuhnke,
• Klaus Kern and
• Uta Schlickum

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1388–1395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.140

• electronic properties of pentacene deposited onto h-BN/Rh(111) and compare them with those of pentacene deposited onto KCl on various metal surfaces. When deposited onto KCl, the HOMO and LUMO energies of the pentacene molecules scale with the work functions of the combined KCl/metal surface. The magnitude

• of the variation between the respective KCl/metal systems indicates the degree of interaction of the frontier orbitals with the underlying metal. The results confirm that the so-called IDIS model developed by Willenbockel et al. applies not only to molecular layers on bare metal surfaces, but also to

• chloride (KCl); scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM); scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STS); Introduction Miniaturization plays a paramount role in the development of modern technology. In order to further reduce the dimensions of the basic processing units, molecular electronics is a promising approach

Bright fluorescent silica-nanoparticle probes for high-resolution STED and confocal microscopy

• Isabella Tavernaro,
• Christian Cavelius,
• Henrike Peuschel and
• Annette Kraegeloh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1283–1296, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.130

• -potential of the nanoparticles was determined using a Nanosizer ZSP from Malvern Instruments (Herrenberg, Germany) in water at 150 V using 1·10−3 M KCl as background electrolyte. Each sample underwent three series of measurements (with each series comprising 40 runs). Nanoparticle concentration: The

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of cell lysates mixed with silver nanoparticles for tumor classification

• Mohamed Hassoun,
• Iwan W.Schie,
• Tatiana Tolstik,
• Sarmiza E. Stanca,
• Christoph Krafft and
• Juergen Popp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1183–1190, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.120

• absorption band of silver (Ag) nanoparticles corresponds to the maximum of the plasmon resonance which is near 415 nm (Figure 1a). Shifting the plasmon resonance of our nanoparticles to the near-IR spectral region was achieved by aggregation using potassium chloride (KCl). When nanoparticles aggregate, they

• become electronically coupled, which results in a change of the surface plasmon resonance compared to individual particles. Figure 1b shows the effect of adding KCl to Ag nanoparticles on the optical absorption characteristics. The aggregated nanoparticles have a broad absorption band that allowed for

• of the Ag nanoparticles was determined to be around 50 nm with a high degree of polydispersity in size ranging from 10 to 100 nm. The Ag nanoparticles do not tend to aggregate to a single specific shape after adding KCl. Instead, they form different shapes from spheres to rods. The cells, before and

Calculating free energies of organic molecules on insulating substrates

• Julian Gaberle,
• David Z. Gao and
• Alexander L. Shluger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 667–674, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.71

• organic molecules on an insulating substrate are discussed. The adhesion of 1,3,5-tri(4'-cyano-[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl)benzene (TCB) and 1,4-bis(4-cyanophenyl)-2,5-bis(decyloxy)benzene (CDB) molecules to step edges on the KCl(001) surface and the formation of molecular dimers were studied using classical

• -tri(4'-cyano-[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl)benzene (TCB) and 1,4-bis(cyanophenyl)-2,5-bis(decyloxy)benzene (CDB) molecules on an insulating KCl(001) surface and partitioned it into entropy and enthalpy contributions. Previously we found that entropy loss can give significant contributions to free energy of

• force fields are used since the computational cost associated with ab initio methods is too high. The LAMMPS code was used for all calculations [44] along with a combination of several classical force fields. A Buckingham potential was used to describe the interactions inside the KCl slab, as

Performance of colloidal CdS sensitized solar cells with ZnO nanorods/nanoparticles

• Anurag Roy,
• Partha Pratim Das,
• Mukta Tathavadekar,
• Sumita Das and
• Parukuttyamma Sujatha Devi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 210–221, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.23

• electrolytes were used for the cell fabrication, such as polysulphide and iodine/iodide. The electrolyte solution was prepared with 0.5 M Na2S, 1 M S and 0.02 M KCl in ethanol: water mixture (7:3) solution. In addition, to fabricate the counter electrode, a 0.1 M Cu(NO3)2 solution in ethanol was drop-casted

Streptavidin-coated gold nanoparticles: critical role of oligonucleotides on stability and fractal aggregation

• Roberta D'Agata,
• Pasquale Palladino and
• Giuseppe Spoto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1–11, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.1

• ) solutions at pH 7.4 (137 mM NaCl, 2.7 mM KCl, phosphate buffered 10 mM) were obtained from Amresco (Italy). Ultra-pure water (Milli-Q Element, Millipore) was used for all the experiments. Synthesis of AuNPs Glassware was cleaned with freshly prepared “piranha” solution; i.e., a mixture of 1:3 ratio of

A novel electrochemical nanobiosensor for the ultrasensitive and specific detection of femtomolar-level gastric cancer biomarker miRNA-106a

• Maryam Daneshpour,
• Kobra Omidfar and
• Hossein Ghanbarian

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2023–2036, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.193

• different electrodes in the presence of 5.0 mM [Fe(CN)6]3−/4− containing 0.1 M KCl. As it can be seen, compared to bare SPCE, the peak current decreased after coating the SPCE with streptavidin and further probe immobilization, which apparently blocked and reduced the electron transfer of [Fe(CN)6]3−/4− to

• , ferric chloride hexahydrate (FeCl3·6H2O), ferrous chloride tetrahydrate (FeCl2·4H2O), and acetic acid were obtained from Acros Organics (USA). Chloroauric acid (HAuCl4), BSA, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), low molecular weight chitosan, dialysis tube with molecular cut off 12000 Da, sodium azide, KCl, 1

• to characterize the stepwise fabrication of the miRNA-nanobiosensor. The basic analysis of the SPCEs in this study was performed via CV mode, at the potential range of −0.7 to +1.1 V and the scan rate of 50 mV/s using 5.0 mM [Fe(CN)6]3−/4− containing 0.1 M KCl. The performance of the biosensor was

Layered composites of PEDOT/PSS/nanoparticles and PEDOT/PSS/phthalocyanines as electron mediators for sensors and biosensors

• Celia García-Hernández,
• Cristina García-Cabezón,
• Fernando Martín-Pedrosa,
• José Antonio De Saja and
• María Luz Rodríguez-Méndez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1948–1959, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.186

• corresponding PEDOT/PSS, PEDOT/PSS/EM or PEDOT/PSS/EM-Enz modified electrode as the working electrode; the reference electrode was Ag|AgCl/KCl 3 mol/L and the counter electrode was a platinum sheet with a surface area of 1 cm2. Cyclic voltammetry was carried out from −0.6 V to +1.2 V (vs Ag/AgCl) with a scan

False positives and false negatives measure less than 0.001% in labeling ssDNA with osmium tetroxide 2,2’-bipyridine

• Anastassia Kanavarioti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1434–1446, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.135

• pH 7 buffered 1M KCl [34]. Specifically, Ir/Io = 0.12 for both, and corrected per unit mean translocation time τ = 312.5 and τ = 422.5 μs, for C(OsBp) and U(OsBp), respectively [34][38]. In contrast, Ir/Io = 0.08 and τ = 102.5 μs for T(OsBp) was obtained under the same conditions. In the context of

High performance Ce-doped ZnO nanorods for sunlight-driven photocatalysis

• Bilel Chouchene,
• Tahar Ben Chaabane,
• Lavinia Balan,
• Emilien Girot,
• Kevin Mozet,
• Ghouti Medjahdi and
• Raphaël Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1338–1349, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.125

• experiments, we investigated the influence of various chlorides (NaCl, KCl, MgCl2 and CaCl2) used at a 10 mM concentration and at neutral pH on the photocatalytic activity of ZnO:Ce (5%) rods (Figure 11a). The amount of dye adsorbed by the photocatalyst and the photocatalytic activity are only slightly

In situ characterization of hydrogen absorption in nanoporous palladium produced by dealloying

• Eva-Maria Steyskal,
• Christopher Wiednig,
• Norbert Enzinger and
• Roland Würschum

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1197–1201, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.110

• pushrod of a Linseis L75 vertical dilatometer applying a constant pressure of 100 mN. A well-annealed, flattened Pd wire served as working electrode contact to an Autolab PGSTAT204 potentiostat. Electrochemical charging was performed at room temperature using commercial Ag/AgCl (saturated KCl) reference

Voltammetric determination of polyphenolic content in pomegranate juice using a poly(gallic acid)/multiwalled carbon nanotube modified electrode

• Refat Abdel-Hamid and
• Emad F. Newair

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1104–1112, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.103

• × 10–6 cm2/s in 0.2 M KCl [29]. The estimated active surface area values are 0.050 and 0.077 cm2 for bare GCE and PGA/MWCNT/GCE, respectively. Chronoamperometry For comparison, chronoamperometric measurements were employed for estimation of the electroactive surface area. The chronoamperometric

• behavior of 1.0 mM K3[Fe(CN)6] on GCE and PGA/MWCNT/GCE in 0.2 M KCl solution for the first wave at different duration times was performed. For chronoamperometric experiments, the electrode potential was stepped from 0.50 to 0.02 V on GCE and from 0.050 to −0.20 V on PGA/MWCNT/GCE for a fixed duration, τ

• ) coupled with NOVA 1.10 software. An electrochemical sensor is comprised of three electrodes: the working (bare or modified glassy carbon electrodes), the reference (Ag/AgCl, aqueous KCl, 3.5 M) and the auxiliary Pt wire electrodes. The surface morphology of a (PGA/MWCNT) composite film was examined using

Reconstitution of the membrane protein OmpF into biomimetic block copolymer–phospholipid hybrid membranes

• Matthias Bieligmeyer,
• Franjo Artukovic,
• Stephan Nussberger,
• Thomas Hirth,
• Thomas Schiestel and
• Michaela Müller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 881–892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.80

• molecular weight of the block copolymers. At low voltages, the channel conductance of OmpF in 1 M KCl was around 2.3 nS. In line with these experiments, integration of OmpF was also revealed by impedance spectroscopy. Our results indicate that blending synthetic polymer membranes with phospholipids allows

• potentials, as also demonstrated in the histograms (Figure 5D). At high membrane potentials, single-channel conductance was about 0.7 nS in 1 M KCl (Table 3), likely representing the conductance of a single pore of the OmpF trimer. These values were in line with conductance measurements of OmpF in pure DPhPC

• membranes in 1 M KCl (Figure 5C and Figure 5D) [60][62][63]. It should be noted that the probability of OmpF to insert into PIPEO/DPhPC membranes was significantly lower than that of inserting into planar DPhPC bilayers. A possible explanation is the presence of minute amounts of chloroform in the PIPEO

Mismatch detection in DNA monolayers by atomic force microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

• Maryse D. Nkoua Ngavouka,
• Pietro Capaldo,
• Elena Ambrosetti,
• Giacinto Scoles,
• Loredana Casalis and
• Pietro Parisse

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 220–227, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.20

• rinsed with the buffer solution used for the measurements, 100 mM KCl, and the capacitance at the electrode/electrolyte interface was measured. In the hybridization step the cell is filled with a drop of the same hybridizing buffer solution, 100 mM KCl, containing the complementary or partially

• mismatches (a) and in presence of partially complementary sequences (b). The red signal represents the differential capacitance of a low-density 44 bases ssDNA SAM functionalized WE measured in 100 mM KCl. (a) In blue we report the hybridization with the fully matching sequence, in green the hybridization

Chemical bath deposition of textured and compact zinc oxide thin films on vinyl-terminated polystyrene brushes

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Caroline G. Hofmeister,
• Peter Lindemann,
• Cheng Huang,
• Johannes Baier,
• Andreas Leineweber,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Christof Wöll,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 102–110, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.12

• Electrokinetic Analyzer (Anton Paar GmbH). Samples were glued on the stamps of an adjustable gap cell (10 mm × 20 mm) with double-sided tape and a gap height of 100 µm was used. A 1 mM KCl solution was purged with nitrogen prior and during the measurements. For automatic titration, a 0.1 M HCl solution was used