Straightforward synthesis of gold nanoparticles by adding water to an engineered small dendrimer

• Sébastien Gottis,
• Régis Laurent,
• Vincent Collière and
• Anne-Marie Caminade

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1110–1118, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.95

• slightly different shapes. Figure 3C provides a detailed view of a triangular nanoparticle in which the layers of the gold atoms in the nanocrystals can be seen. Figure 3D displays a pentagonal nanoparticle which is constituted by five associated triangles. Figure 3E shows a hexagonal nanoparticle with a

Gas-sensing features of nanostructured tellurium thin films

• Dumitru Tsiulyanu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1010–1018, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.85

• applications in development in advanced gas sensors and, so far, are the only Te-based nanostructured sensors tested with this purpose. Besides, it can also be observed that nanostructuring is mostly performed via phase transformations, such as hydrothermal recrystallization and growth of Te nanocrystals

• nanostructured Te films were studied with a special focus on the gas-response kinetics. Results and Discussion Sample preparation, morphology and structure Two methods were used to nanostructure Te-based films: growth of Te nanocrystals on Pyrex glass substrates or deposition of amorphous Te films onto

• predominant growth orientation of the nanocrystals. As a counter example, the XRD pattern of a Te film grown on Al2O3 substrates with a higher deposition rate ≈30 nm/s (Figure 2B, adapted from [27]) only shows two weak Te peaks (ASTM, 4-554). These type of films are considered amorphous. It should also be

Electromigration-induced directional steps towards the formation of single atomic Ag contacts

• Atasi Chatterjee,
• Christoph Tegenkamp and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 680–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.55

• materials like Ag, grain boundaries occur mostly because of the different orientation of nanocrystals. Since the elastic strain energy strongly increases with angular misfit, small-angle grain boundaries are the most likely ones. Thus, most contact areas are not far from (stepped) high-symmetry crystal

Preparation, characterization and photocatalytic performance of heterostructured CuO–ZnO-loaded composite nanofiber membranes

• Wei Fang,
• Liang Yu and
• Lan Xu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 631–650, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.50

• work [37], bubble-electrospinning was used to prepare Cu(Ac)2/Zn(Ac)2/PVDF/PAN on a large scale. Subsequently, PVDF/PAN CNFMs loaded with CuO and ZnO nanocrystals were prepared using heat treatment and hydrothermal synthesis. However, the diameter distribution of CNFMs obtained by bubble

• dried in the electrothermal oven, and then the dried CNFMs were packed in self-sealing bags for subsequent tests and applications. The growth mechanism of CuO and ZnO nanocrystals on the calcined CNFMs using hydrothermal synthesis is as follows. When C6H12N4 is added to the solution, a large amount of

• ammonium ions will be released, and copper ions and zinc ions will form [Cu(NH3)4]2+ and [Zn(NH3)4]2+, respectively. Finally, Cu(OH)2 and Zn(OH)2 are formed under alkaline conditions after the addition of NH3·H2O. At a certain temperature and pressure, the water evaporate, and CuO and ZnO nanocrystals will

Soybean-derived blue photoluminescent carbon dots

• Shanshan Wang,
• Wei Sun,
• Dong-sheng Yang and
• Fuqian Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 606–619, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.48

• carbon. The annealing at the temperature of 850 °C did not cause the conversion of amorphous carbon nanoparticles to nanocrystals, and the LAL processing of the annealed-HTC carbon particles also produced amorphous carbon nanoparticles. The size distribution of the soybean-derived nanoparticles is

Multilayer capsules made of weak polyelectrolytes: a review on the preparation, functionalization and applications in drug delivery

• Varsha Sharma and
• Anandhakumar Sundaramurthy

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 508–532, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.41

Using gold nanoparticles to detect single-nucleotide polymorphisms: toward liquid biopsy

• María Sanromán Iglesias and
• Marek Grzelczak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 263–284, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.20

• the use of emergent nanomaterials. Over the last decade, a number of novel and optically active nanomaterials involving semiconductor or metal nanocrystals enabled the development of sensing devices with rather simple transduction mechanisms [3]. For example, the aggregation-induced color change of a

• giving rise to the so-called localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). The position and the bandwidth of the LSPR can be modulated by the shape of the nanocrystals and can vary between 400 and 2000 nm. The high absorption cross section (plasmonic nanoparticles absorb photons over a region about ten

• times larger than their physical diameters) [59], and the lack of photobleaching (unlike organic fluorescent dyes and semiconductor nanocrystals) are additional parameters making plasmonic nanocrystals attractive materials for biosensing. Importantly, the position of the plasmon band and its bandwidth

High-performance asymmetric supercapacitor made of NiMoO₄ nanorods@Co₃O₄ on a cellulose-based carbon aerogel

• Meixia Wang,
• Jing Zhang,
• Xibin Yi,
• Benxue Liu,
• Xinfu Zhao and
• Xiaochan Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 240–251, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.18

• and were uniformly grown on CA frameworks to support the loading with Co3O4 polyhedral nanocrystals. The hierarchical porous structure of the composite made of NiMoO4 nanorods and Co3O4 nanoparticles derived from ZIF-67 on the CA skeleton (NiMoO4@Co3O4/CA) provides a reaction interface adequate for

Frontiers in pharmaceutical nanotechnology

• Matthias G. Wacker

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2538–2540, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.244

• production of nanocrystals. To date, the nanomilling platform of Elan Drug Technologies is widely used for the formulation of poorly soluble compounds [11]. Also, with regards to the topical administration route, nanometer-scale excipients have been rarely associated with safety issues and have been widely

Small protein sequences can induce cellular uptake of complex nanohybrids

• Jan-Philip Merkl,
• Malak Safi,
• Christian Schmidtke,
• Fadi Aldeek,
• Johannes Ostermann,
• Tatiana Domitrovic,
• Sebastian Gärtner,
• John E. Johnson,
• Horst Weller and
• Hedi Mattoussi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2477–2482, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.238

• have also been discussed [12][14][15]. More recently, there have been a few reports discussing the use of luminescent Eu-loaded hydroxyapatite nanocrystals for rapid HeLa cancer cell imaging [9][11][16], or the nanostructure self‐assembly driven by amino acid coordination to increase the biological

Abrupt elastic-to-plastic transition in pentagonal nanowires under bending

• Sergei Vlassov,
• Magnus Mets,
• Boris Polyakov,
• Jianjun Bian,
• Leonid Dorogin and
• Vahur Zadin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2468–2476, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.237

• materials is expected to lead to mechanical properties different from those of regular monocrystals [7]. This fact must be taken into account when considering applications in which nanocrystals are subjected to mechanical deformation, for example, NW-based nanoswitches [8], nanoresonators [9] and flexible

Coating of upconversion nanoparticles with silica nanoshells of 5–250 nm thickness

• Cynthia Kembuan,
• Maysoon Saleh,
• Bastian Rühle,
• Ute Resch-Genger and
• Christina Graf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2410–2421, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.231

• nanocrystals have gained importance as inorganic optical reporters in recent years [1][2][3]. The doping of inorganic host NaYF4 matrices with different optically active lanthanide ions can result in so-called upconversion nanoparticles (UCNP) which can absorb photons of lower energy (e.g., near-infrared (NIR

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

• Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad León; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, León, Guanajuato, 37684, México 10.3762/bjnano.10.216 Abstract Herein, we report the synthesis of nontoxic pyrite iron sulfide (FeS2) nanocrystals (NCs) using a two-pot method. Moreover, we study the influence

• et al. [18], reported an increment of the PCE from 2.08 to 2.3% with the incorporation of small amounts of FeS2 nanocrystals (NCs) (0.3 wt %) into the P3HT:PC71BM active layer. Moreover, Khan et al. [47], added 20 wt % FeS2 quantum dots (of ≈5 nm size) and obtained a high PCE of 3.62% compared to the

• and synthesis of FeS2 nanocrystals All chemicals were used as received without further purification. For FeS2 synthesis, iron(II) chloride, octadecylamine and diphenyl ether were acquired from Sigma-Aldrich. For OPV fabrication, indium tin oxide (ITO) covered glass substrates (10 Ω/sq, ≈165 nm

Optimization and performance of nitrogen-doped carbon dots as a color conversion layer for white-LED applications

• Tugrul Guner,
• Hurriyet Yuce,
• Didem Tascioglu,
• Eren Simsek,
• Umut Savaci,
• Aziz Genc,
• Servet Turan and
• Mustafa M. Demir

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2004–2013, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.197

• presented in Figure 2b is the magnified image of the red squared region shown in Figure 2a. Figure 2b reveals that the cluster of about 40 nm in size, which is seen in Figure 2a, is formed by at least seven sub-10 nm nanocrystals. It is convenient to present d-spacing values for the identification of these

Preservation of rutin nanosuspensions without the use of preservatives

• Pascal L. Stahr and
• Cornelia M. Keck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1902–1913, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.185

• Pascal L. Stahr Cornelia M. Keck Department of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Robert-Koch-Str. 4, 35037 Marburg, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.10.185 Abstract Nanocrystals are used as universal approach to improve the bioactivity of poorly soluble active ingredients

• . They are produced by various techniques, typically yielding aqueous nanosuspensions, which are prone to microbial contamination. Preservation of nanocrystals is possible but might not always be feasible, as preservatives might interfere with other excipients in the formulations or with chemicals used

• in assays, cell cultures or animal models. Therefore, to enable an easier use of nanocrystals, preservative-free nanosuspensions would be a good alternative. In this study, rutin nanocrystals were frozen and stored for three months at −20 °C. The chemical, physical and microbial stability were

Fabrication and characterization of Si_1−xGe_x nanocrystals in as-grown and annealed structures: a comparative study

• Muhammad Taha Sultan,
• Adrian Valentin Maraloiu,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Jón Tómas Gudmundsson,
• Andrei Manolescu,
• Valentin Serban Teodorescu,
• Magdalena Lidia Ciurea and
• Halldór Gudfinnur Svavarsson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1873–1882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.182

• annealing results in the periodically arranged columnar self-assembly of SiGe core–shell nanocrystals. An increase in photocurrent intensity by more than an order of magnitude was achieved by annealing. Furthermore, a detailed discussion is provided on strain development within the structures, the

• consequential interface characteristics and its effect on the photocurrent spectra. Keywords: grazing incidence XRD (GIXRD); high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS); HRTEM; magnetron sputtering; photocurrent spectra; SiGe nanocrystals in SiO2/SiGe/SiO2 multilayers; STEM-HAADF; TEM; Introduction

• Currently, there is considerable interest in the growth of self-assembled quantum dots their application in optoelectronics and nanosized structures. For instance, semiconducting Si, Ge and SiGe nanocrystals (NCs/NPs) embedded in a dielectric oxide matrix have been found to exhibit strong quantum

Synthesis of nickel/gallium nanoalloys using a dual-source approach in 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazole ionic liquids

• Ilka Simon,
• Julius Hornung,
• Juri Barthel,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Maik Finze,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1754–1767, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.171

• = 1,5-cyclooctadiene) and GaCp* (Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) in the ionic liquid [BMIm][NTf2] selectively yields small intermetallic Ni/Ga nanocrystals of 5 ± 1 nm as derived from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy

The impact of crystal size and temperature on the adsorption-induced flexibility of the Zr-based metal–organic framework DUT-98

• Simon Krause,
• Volodymyr Bon,
• Hongchu Du,
• Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski,
• Ulrich Stoeck,
• Irena Senkovska and
• Stefan Kaskel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1737–1744, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.169

• the microscopic analysis of defects in Zr-MOFs [36]. Unfortunately, the nanocrystals of DUT-98(3) decomposed during the measurement. By reproducing the synthesis using Hf instead of Zr we obtained DUT-98(Hf) with a crystal length of 130 nm, which demonstrated the same structure as shown by PXRD

• (Supporting Information File 1, Figure S9). Interestingly, DUT-98(Hf) showed enhanced stability towards the electron beam allowing for detailed microscopic analysis of the nanocrystals and their structure. HRTEM analysis shows uniform pore channels along the rod-shaped nanocrystals with a spacing of the Hf

Novel hollow titanium dioxide nanospheres with antimicrobial activity against resistant bacteria

• Carol López de Dicastillo,
• Cristian Patiño,
• María José Galotto,
• Yesseny Vásquez-Martínez,
• Claudia Torrent,
• Daniela Alburquenque,
• Alejandro Pereira and
• Juan Escrig

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1716–1725, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.167

• , and can be irreversibly transformed into a stable rutile structure by heating, this process did not occur during calcination. The anatase–rutile transition occurs between 400 to 1000 °C, and it is dependent on several parameters, such as the size of the nanocrystals, impurity content, microstructure

Nanoporous smartPearls for dermal application – Identification of optimal silica types and a scalable production process as prerequisites for marketed products

• David Hespeler,
• Sanaa El Nomeiri,
• Jonas Kaltenbach and
• Rainer H. Müller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1666–1678, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.162

• cyclodextrins, for example, can be of limited effect because of insufficient release of the molecules from such complexes (i.e., too high binding constants) [6][7]. Additionally, many molecules are not able to form such complexes. A highly effective solution is the dermal administration of nanocrystals (trade

• name smartCrystals®) [8][9][10]. These materials have been on the market as commercial dermal cosmetic products since 2007 (e.g., hesperidin, la prairie Switzerland) [11][12]. They can be considered as the current “gold standard”. The trick with nanocrystals is that the physicochemical properties on

• scale by bead milling or high-pressure homogenization. Skin penetration studies showed that the smartPearls were actually superior to the nanocrystals [8][24][25]. However, the market introduction in final cosmetic products was blocked due to the lack of an industrial supplier of active agent-loaded

High-temperature resistive gas sensors based on ZnO/SiC nanocomposites

• Vadim B. Platonov,
• Marina N. Rumyantseva,
• Alexander S. Frolov,
• Alexey D. Yapryntsev and
• Alexander M. Gaskov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1537–1547, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.151

• pore diameter of 30 nm (Figure 2f). The polymeric fibers containing zinc acetate (Figure 2b) are cylindrical wires about 500 nm in diameter. The ZnO nanofibers obtained after annealing (Figure 2d) consist of polycrystalline wires with an average diameter of 150 nm formed by nanocrystals about 20–30 nm

Green fabrication of lanthanide-doped hydroxide-based phosphors: Y(OH)₃:Eu³⁺ nanoparticles for white light generation

• Tugrul Guner,
• Anilcan Kus,
• Mehmet Ozcan,
• Aziz Genc,
• Hasan Sahin and
• Mustafa M. Demir

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1200–1210, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.119

• times: 5, 15, 45, and 60 min, (b) schematic presentation of the unit cell of Y(OH)3 lattice, (c) general HAADF-STEM micrographs of the Y(OH)3:(7.5% Eu3+) particles prepared at 5 min showing the presence agglomerated nanocrystals, and (d) the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of Y(OH)3:7.5% Eu3+ phosphors

Structural and optical properties of penicillamine-protected gold nanocluster fractions separated by sequential size-selective fractionation

• Xiupei Yang,
• Zhengli Yang,
• Fenglin Tang,
• Jing Xu,
• Maoxue Zhang and
• Martin M. F. Choi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 955–966, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.96

• ) structure of Au nanocrystal whereas the high-magnification TEM image also shows very clear fringes of the AuNC. These results infer that our AuNC product consists of highly crystalline nanocrystals. Figure 2B depicts the histogram of the size distribution obtained from the HRTEM image. The AuNC product

Synthesis of novel C-doped g-C₃N₄ nanosheets coupled with CdIn₂S₄ for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

• Jingshuai Chen,
• Chang-Jie Mao,
• Helin Niu and
• Ji-Ming Song

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 912–921, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.92

• , N, Cd, In, and S, also verifying the coexistence of CCN nanosheets and CdIn2S4 nanocrystals in the composite. The C 1s spectrum in Figure 5b shows some new peaks with binding energies at 284.8 eV, 286.0 eV and 288.1 eV. According to the reported literature, the peak located at 284.8 eV belongs to

Magnetic field-assisted assembly of iron oxide mesocrystals: a matter of nanoparticle shape and magnetic anisotropy

• Julian J. Brunner,
• Marina Krumova,
• Helmut Cölfen and
• Elena V. Sturm (née Rosseeva)

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 894–900, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.90

• hot research topics nowadays [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. One reason is that their properties can strongly differ from the physical and chemical properties of their corresponding bulk material [8][9][10]. As a matter of fact, magnetite bulk single crystals are ferrimagnetic, while magnetite nanocrystals

• with sizes less than 30 nm become superparamagnetic [11][12][13]. Hence, assemblies consisting of superparamagnetic magnetite nanocrystals are still superparamagnetic although their sizes can be tens or hundreds of micrometres [14][15]. This can be useful to obtain increased magnetization while

• retaining the superparamagnetic properties of magnetite nanocrystals [16]. Additionally, emergent properties from the single nanocrystals can arise within ordered assemblies, which makes the research on such assemblies highly interesting [16][17][18]. These ordered assemblies can be formed via different