Outstanding chain-extension effect and high UV resistance of polybutylene succinate containing amino-acid-modified layered double hydroxides

• Adam A. Marek,
• Vincent Verney,
• Christine Taviot-Gueho,
• Grazia Totaro,
• Laura Sisti,
• Annamaria Celli and
• Fabrice Leroux

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 684–695, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.68

• study reports the beneficial role of PHE interleaved into LDH as a self-healing agent for polymer coating in corrosion inhibition for aluminium substrates [16]. Due to the presence of benzene (for PHE) or the heterocyclic imidazole ring (for HIS), both organic molecules should absorb in the short to

• to a photodegradation process, showing their resistance to UV irradiation. Experimental Materials and reagents Aluminium nitrate Al(NO3)3·9H2O, magnesium nitrate Mg(NO3)2·6H2O, sodium nitrate NaNO3, sodium hydroxide, the amino acids L-histidine (HIS) and L-phenylalanine (PHE) were purchased from

Topochemical engineering of composite hybrid fibers using layered double hydroxides and abietic acid

• Liji Sobhana,
• Lokesh Kesavan,
• Jan Gustafsson and
• Pedro Fardim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 589–605, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.60

• nitrate hexahydrate Mg(NO3)2·6H2O, aluminium nitrate nonahydrate Al(NO3)3·9H2O, ethanol C2H5OH) and sodium carbonate were procured from Sigma-Aldrich. All these chemicals were used as received without any further purification. Methods The present work employed some protocols that were already tried out in

Ceria/polymer nanocontainers for high-performance encapsulation of fluorophores

• Kartheek Katta,
• Dmitry Busko,
• Yuri Avlasevich,
• Katharina Landfester,
• Stanislav Baluschev and
• Rafael Muñoz-Espí

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 522–530, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.53

• , Alfa Aesar, 99%), and 2,2'-azobis(2-methylbutyronitrile) (V59, Wako) were used as received. Styrene was passed over an aluminium oxide column to remove the stabilizer before use. Synthesis of the dye and preparation of its stock solution N,N’-(2,6-Diisopropylphenyl)-1,6,9,13-tetrakis[4-(1,1,3,3

Nanocomposite–parylene C thin films with high dielectric constant and low losses for future organic electronic devices

• Marwa Mokni,
• Gianluigi Maggioni,
• Abdelkader Kahouli,
• Sara M. Carturan,
• Walter Raniero and
• Alain Sylvestre

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 428–441, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.42

• of nanometers of parylene C film are deposited firstly as an electrical passivation layer onto the metallic substrate (silicon, gold or aluminium). During this step, the RF-magnetron sputtering source is turned on in order to avoid the deposition of parylene C on the Ag target surface, but a shutter

Advanced scanning probe lithography using anatase-to-rutile transition to create localized TiO₂ nanorods

• Julian Kalb,
• Vanessa Knittel and
• Lukas Schmidt-Mende

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 412–418, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.40

• ) 950 A2 was used as an electron resist and spin-coated at 3000 rpm for 90 s with a ramp of 1000 rpm/s. Subsequently, the resist was dried at 120 °C on a hotplate and prebaked at 170 °C in an oven for 30 min. The 30 nm thick resist layer was covered with an 8–10 nm thick aluminium film, which was

• aperture of 10 μm. The aluminium was dissolved in a 0.5 molar NaOH bath within 12 s. The samples were developed in methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) for 25 s and cleaned with isopropanol. In case of electron-beam lithography, a polycrystalline rutile TiO2 films was fabricated as a seed layer for the

Study of silica-based intrinsically emitting nanoparticles produced by an excimer laser

• Imène Reghioua,
• Mattia Fanetti,
• Sylvain Girard,
• Diego Di Francesca,
• Simonpietro Agnello,
• Layla Martin-Samos,
• Marco Cannas,
• Matjaz Valant,
• Melanie Raine,
• Marc Gaillardin,
• Nicolas Richard,
• Philippe Paillet,
• Aziz Boukenter,
• Youcef Ouerdane and
• Antonino Alessi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 211–221, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.19

• plate that was preheated to 60 °C. The grids were supported by an aluminium stub for SEM/EDX/CL characterization. Sample A (SiO2+Ge, 33 mJ/pulse); a) SEM image of an agglomerate/aggregate of nanoparticles, inset zoom of the square 1; b) SEM image of a small group of nanoparticles; c), d) and e) EDX

Ternary nanocomposites of reduced graphene oxide, polyaniline and hexaniobate: hierarchical architecture and high polaron formation

• Claudio H. B. Silva,
• Maria Iliut,
• Christopher Muryn,
• Christian Berger,
• Zachary Coldrick,
• Vera R. L. Constantino,
• Marcia L. A. Temperini and
• Aravind Vijayaraghavan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2936–2946, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.272

• /washing cycles (14000 rpm, 20 min and HCl solution pH 2.6) to obtain dispersions of a total concentration of 1.0 mg·mL−1. Characterization The AFM images were recorded with a Bruker Dimension FastScan probe microscope, operating in tapping mode, with aluminium-coated Si tips (Bruker). Samples were

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

• . This will be revealed by further experiments using substrates of varying atomic mass. Gold should produce a greater proximity effect than aluminium if ion backscattering dominates. 2.2 Electron beam lithography: recent developments 2.2.1 High-throughput/high-resolution EBL. As described in the

• for measuring the bending of the beam. The thermo-mechanical actuator is a loop made of a thin metal film of aluminium or aluminium–magnesium alloy [148] on top of the silicon beam. A current through the actuator results in heating that induces bending of the cantilever due to the bimorph effect

Characterization of the microscopic tribological properties of sandfish (Scincus scincus) scales by atomic force microscopy

• Weibin Wu,
• Christian Lutz,
• Simon Mersch,
• Richard Thelen,
• Christian Greiner,
• Guillaume Gomard and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2618–2627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.243

• that the tribological properties of sandfish scales on the microscale are not exceptional if compared to snake scales or technical surfaces such as aluminium, Teflon, or highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. Keywords: biotribology; frictional properties of reptile scales; sandfish; Scincus scincus

• is indeed lower than those of other technical surfaces such as aluminium (θ = 25°), steel (θ = 26°) or Teflon (θ = 35°), which were examined with the same sand and setup [3]. Interestingly, granular friction angles reported for closely related but not sand-swimming lizards such as the banded skink

• ), aluminium and silicon. In addition to that, we examined scales from four different snakes, which were also collected after skin-shedding (provided by G. Gomard, KIT). Spalerosophis diadema cliffordii (Clifford's diadem snake) is a psammophile snake living in a sandy environment but not in sand dunes like

Friction reduction through biologically inspired scale-like laser surface textures

• Johannes Schneider,
• Vergil Djamiykov and
• Christian Greiner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2561–2572, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.238

• . Aluminium oxide is a common material in those investigations [35][36]. Therefore, and because Al2O3 can be considered as the model engineering ceramic, it was chosen as the counter body material for testing the performance of the scale-like surface morphology in a steel-on-ceramic contact. The results of

• friction coefficient for the steel-on-ceramic contact are significantly larger compared to the steel and polymer counter bodies presented above. This might be due to the significantly larger surface roughness of the aluminium oxide discs compared to the PEEK and 100Cr6 ones. Unfortunately, it is

• third counter body material tested was aluminium oxide (FRIALIT F99,7), purchased from FRIATEC AG (Mannheim, Germany). The roughness of these discs after grinding was Ra = 0.65 ± 0.1 µm. The Young’s modulus was determined to be 384 GPa and the hardness was measured as 1670 HV1. For the experiments

Nanocellulose: Recent advances and its prospects in environmental remediation

• Katrina Pui Yee Shak,
• Yean Ling Pang and
• Shee Keat Mah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2479–2498, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.232

• wastewater. Nanocellulose-based flocculant Common chemical conditioning is usually performed by using inorganic, multivalent cationic coagulants such as aluminium, iron salts or synthetic polyelectrolytes such as synthetic polyacrylamides. These synthetic polyelectrolyte materials pose environmental problems

The structural and chemical basis of temporary adhesion in the sea star Asterina gibbosa

• Birgit Lengerer,
• Marie Bonneel,
• Mathilde Lefevre,
• Elise Hennebert,
• Philippe Leclère,
• Emmanuel Gosselin,
• Peter Ladurner and
• Patrick Flammang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2071–2086, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.196

• dried by the critical-point method. They were mounted on aluminium stubs, coated with gold in a sputter-coater and observed with a JEOL JSM-7200F field emission scanning electron microscope. 3D confocal interference microscopy Footprints were collected on clean microscope glass slides, rinsed with

Synthesis of carbon nanowalls from a single-source metal-organic precursor

• André Giese,
• Sebastian Schipporeit,
• Volker Buck and
• Nicolas Wöhrl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1895–1905, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.181

• the use of the single-source metal-organic precursor aluminium acetylacetonate. This precursor is relatively unknown in combination with the ICP-PECVD deposition method in literature and, thus, based on our previous publication is further investigated in this work to better understand the influence of

• temperature of the substrate and the substrate material had a strong influence on the morphology of the graphitic carbon nanowall structures. With regard to these results, a first growth model for the deposition of CNWs by ICP-PECVD and aluminium acetylacetonate is proposed. This model explains the formation

• of four different morphologies (nanorods as well as thorny, straight and curled CNWs) by taking the surface diffusion into account. The surface diffusion depends on the particle energies and the substrate material and thus explains the influence of these parameters. Keywords: aluminium

Synthesis of rare-earth metal and rare-earth metal-fluoride nanoparticles in ionic liquids and propylene carbonate

• Marvin Siebels,
• Lukas Mai,
• Laura Schmolke,
• Kai Schütte,
• Juri Barthel,
• Junpei Yue,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Bernd M. Smarsly,
• Anjana Devi,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1881–1894, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.180

• ErF3 working electrodes were prepared by coating an (N-methyl pyrrolidone)-based slurry composed of 75 wt % ErF3, 15 wt % conductive agents (Super P active carbon from Temical) and 10 wt % binder (PVDF) on a current collector (aluminium foil). A half-cell was assembled in an Ar-filled glovebox, with

Cathodoluminescence as a probe of the optical properties of resonant apertures in a metallic film

• Kalpana Singh,
• Evgeniy Panchenko,
• Babak Nasr,
• Amelia Liu,
• Lukas Wesemann,
• Timothy J. Davis and
• Ann Roberts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1491–1500, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.140

• micrographs of the apertures investigated here are shown in Figure 1 along with a schematic illustrating the relevant parameters. CL results were obtained using a scanning electron microscope (FEI NOVA Nano SEM 450) fitted with a Delmic SPARC CL system comprising an aluminium parabolic mirror with a moving

Disorder-induced suppression of the zero-bias conductance peak splitting in topological superconducting nanowires

• Jun-Tong Ren,
• Hai-Feng Lü,
• Sha-Sha Ke,
• Yong Guo and
• Huai-Wu Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1358–1369, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.128

• produces a finite Majorana energy splitting and zero-bias peak splitting [36][37][38] due to the finite size effects. In a recent experiment [39], the energy splitting of Majorana zero mode has been observed in InAs nanowire segments with epitaxial aluminium, which forms a proximity-induced superconducting

Optimisation of purification techniques for the preparation of large-volume aqueous solar nanoparticle inks for organic photovoltaics

• Furqan Almyahi,
• Thomas R. Andersen,
• Nathan A. Cooling,
• Natalie P. Holmes,
• Matthew J. Griffith,
• Krishna Feron,
• Xiaojing Zhou,
• Warwick J. Belcher and
• Paul C. Dastoor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 649–659, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.60

• 110 °C for 5 min in nitrogen glove box. Under vacuum (2 × 10−6 Torr) calcium (film thickness ≈30 nm) and aluminium (film thickness ≈100 nm) electrodes (Ca/Al) were thermally evaporated. Film thickness The Film thickness of the active layer was determined based on an average of 4 scans by profilometry

Mechanistic insights into plasmonic photocatalysts in utilizing visible light

• Kah Hon Leong,
• Azrina Abd Aziz,
• Lan Ching Sim,
• Pichiah Saravanan,
• Min Jang and
• Detlef Bahnemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 628–648, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.59

• , the carrier concentration of aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO) can be shifted from 0.5 to 10 × 1020 cm–3 by varying the concentration of Al, thus contributing to the wide-range SPR (2200–880 nm) [144]. Despite the tunable plasmonic features of semiconductors, some plasmonic semiconductors are

Design of polar self-assembling lactic acid derivatives possessing submicrometre helical pitch

• Alexej Bubnov,
• Cyril Vacek,
• Michał Czerwiński,
• Terezia Vojtylová,
• Wiktor Piecek and
• Věra Hamplová

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 333–341, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.33

• improved by electric field action in the frequency range of 10–20 Hz and an amplitude of 40 kV·cm−1, applied for about 5–20 min while cooling from orthogonal to tilted smectic phase. The samples, hermetically sealed in aluminium pans of 3–5 mg, were used for DSC studies. Mesomorphic properties For all

Review: Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based nanoelectromechanical switches – materials solutions and operational conditions

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Jelena Kosmaca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Jana Andzane and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 271–300, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.29

• distinct current rise (Figure 12a), presumably caused by the lower conductivity of SiC–SiC contacts in comparison to metals. The metallization of SiC switches with aluminium resulted in a sharper on-state current rise (Figure 12b), but reduced durability of these NEM switches down to a few or in some cases

Humidity-dependent wound sealing in succulent leaves of Delosperma cooperi – An adaptation to seasonal drought stress

• Olga Speck,
• Mark Schlechtendahl,
• Florian Borm,
• Tim Kampowski and
• Thomas Speck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 175–186, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.20

• load cell with a maximum load of 10 N and a resolution of ±10 mN (model 31E, Honeywell, Columbus, OH, USA) and two sample holders (aluminium platelets) on opposite sides. The platelets were fitted with holes for easy mounting onto the tensile apparatus via a pinhole assembly. Experimental control and

Electron beam induced deposition of silacyclohexane and dichlorosilacyclohexane: the role of dissociative ionization and dissociative electron attachment in the deposition process

• Ragesh Kumar T P,
• Sangeetha Hari,
• Krishna K Damodaran,
• Oddur Ingólfsson and
• Cornelis W. Hagen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2376–2388, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.237

• size of the interaction volume in a pillar does not necessarily have to be the same as in the bulk, because of the reduced scattering in a pillar. For example, the Monte Carlo simulated mean electron penetration depth for 20 keV electrons in a flat aluminium substrate is 3200 nm [42] while the

• , CAS No. 2406-34-0) was purchased from Gelest Inc, Morrisville PA, US. Silacyclohexane (SCH) was synthesized from DCSCH by following our reported procedure with a slight modification [35]. Briefly, a solution of 1,1-dichloro-1-silacyclohexane in diethyl ether was added dropwise to a lithium aluminium

Increasing the stability of DNA nanostructure templates by atomic layer deposition of Al₂O₃ and its application in imprinting lithography

• Hyojeong Kim,
• Kristin Arbutina,
• Anqin Xu and
• Haitao Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2363–2375, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.236

• resistive to UV/O3 oxidation. The ALD-coated DNA templates were used for a direct pattern transfer to poly(L-lactic acid) films. Keywords: aluminium oxide (Al2O3); atomic layer deposition; DNA nanostructure; nanofabrication; nanoimprint lithography; pattern transfer; polymer stamp; replica molding

A comparative study of the nanoscale and macroscale tribological attributes of alumina and stainless steel surfaces immersed in aqueous suspensions of positively or negatively charged nanodiamonds

• Colin K. Curtis,
• Antonin Marek,
• Alex I. Smirnov and
• Jacqueline Krim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2045–2059, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.205

• friction measurements all surfaces were cleaned in ethanol and then DI water. 5 MHz polished QCM crystals (1” diameter) with either stainless steel (SS304; part number QM1022) or aluminium (part number QM1010) electrodes on the liquid facing side were purchased from Fil-Tech (Boston, MA). The QCM’s were

A systematic study of the controlled generation of crystalline iron oxide nanoparticles on graphene using a chemical etching process

• Peter Krauß,
• Jörg Engstler and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2017–2025, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.202

• (Air Liquide). After synthesis, the setup was purged with argon and cooled to 450 °C for extraction of samples. All parameters were optimized for the synthesis of vertically aligned CNTs on SiO2/Si coated with aluminium and iron [45][46][47]. Materials analysis Graphene transferred onto SiO2/Si wafers