Engineering of oriented carbon nanotubes in composite materials

• Razieh Beigmoradi,
• Abdolreza Samimi and
• Davod Mohebbi-Kalhori

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 415–435, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.41

• bonds and hydrophobic interactions and the positively charged PDDA bonds with the PSS/MWCNT layer via electrostatic and van der Waals forces. This scheme is illustrated in Figure 12. Inert gas flow In this method, the CNTs are arranged by flowing a gas along the substrate. The CNT suspension is

Gas-sensing behaviour of ZnO/diamond nanostructures

• Marina Davydova,
• Alexandr Laposa,
• Jiri Smarhak,
• Alexander Kromka,
• Neda Neykova,
• Josef Nahlik,
• Jiri Kroutil,
• Jan Drahokoupil and
• Jan Voves

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 22–29, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.4

• of X- and Z-axis and the electrostatic stability of the ZnO surface. Moreover, it should be pointed out that the structure was simulated without molecular mechanical calculations. It was found that the NO2 molecule is non-covalently bonded to the metal oxide surface atoms and van der Waals forces

Dry adhesives from carbon nanofibers grown in an open ethanol flame

• Christian Lutz,
• Julia Syurik,
• C. N. Shyam Kumar,
• Christian Kübel,
• Michael Bruns and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2719–2728, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.271

• nearly every surface and adhere to it due to van der Waals forces, allowing the gecko to stick and climb nearly every surface [19][20][21]. Mimicking these nanostructures can lead to high performance dry adhesives with a great range of possible applications in attachment systems of climbing robots [22

Preparation and characterization of polycarbonate/multiwalled carbon nanotube nanocomposites

• Claudio Larosa,
• Niranjan Patra,
• Marco Salerno,
• Lara Mikac,
• Remo Merijs Meri and
• Mile Ivanda

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2026–2031, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.203

• used p-xylene and dichloromethane solvent to mix MWCNTs and prevent their agglomeration induced by strong van der Waals forces. Previous work carried out on PC/MWCNT composites with focus on the mechanical properties showed an increase in the storage modulus obtained from indentation measurements at

Advances and challenges in the field of plasma polymer nanoparticles

• Andrei Choukourov,
• Pavel Pleskunov,
• Daniil Nikitin,
• Valerii Titov,
• Artem Shelemin,
• Mykhailo Vaidulych,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Pavel Solař,
• Jan Hanuš,
• Jaroslav Kousal,
• Ondřej Kylián,
• Danka Slavínská and
• Hynek Biederman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2002–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.200

• situation is related to the weak van der Waals forces acting between NPs and substrate so that a NP layer can be easily destroyed by a tiny mechanical impact. This drawback can be overcome by depositing a capping layer that should be sufficiently robust to fix the NPs on the surface yet sufficiently thin so

Imidazolium-based ionic liquids used as additives in the nanolubrication of silicon surfaces

• Patrícia M. Amorim,
• Ana M. Ferraria,
• Rogério Colaço,
• Luís C. Branco and
• Benilde Saramago

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1961–1971, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.197

• substrate. Enhanced interactions between the cation and or the anion and the hydrophilic silicon substrate, due to van der Waals forces (long side chains), hydrogen bonding (ethanol functional groups) and, more importantly, chemical bonding involving the hydrophilic sulfate and Si, promote the formation of

Intercalation of Si between MoS₂ layers

• Rik van Bremen,
• Qirong Yao,
• Soumya Banerjee,
• Deniz Cakir,
• Nuri Oncel and
• Harold J. W. Zandvliet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1952–1960, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.196

• structure relaxation. Thus, we suggest that the intercalation of silicon atoms between MoS2 layers may promote the formation of silicene, which interacts only weakly with the environment via van der Waals forces. We found that both top and bottom MoS2 layers develop bumps due to the interaction with the

Non-intuitive clustering of 9,10-phenanthrenequinone on Au(111)

• Ryan D. Brown,
• Rebecca C. Quardokus,
• Natalie A. Wasio,
• Jacob P. Petersen,
• Angela M. Silski,
• Steven A. Corcelli and
• S. Alex Kandel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1801–1807, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.181

• in dipole–dipole interactions being overwhelmed by stronger intermolecular interactions (i.e., van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonding) during growth processes [32][33][34][35]. However, the arrangement of molecules in the tetramer does not allow for half of the carbonyl groups present to form C–H

Two-dimensional carbon-based nanocomposites for photocatalytic energy generation and environmental remediation applications

• Suneel Kumar,
• Ashish Kumar,
• Ashish Bahuguna,
• Vipul Sharma and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1571–1600, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.159

• properties with unsaturated N-atoms for anchoring active sites [69]. Furthermore, the stacked 2D layered structure of g-C3N4 consists of single-layer nitrogen heteroatom-substituted graphite nanosheets, formed through sp2 hybridization of C and N atoms, and various layers are bound together by van der Waals

• forces [69]. Thus it is clear that the lattice structure of g-C3N4 consists only of two abundant elements, C and N (C/N molar ratio = 0.75), which are earth abundant and nontoxic in nature [61]. More surface active sites, nontoxicity, natural abundance and good thermal stability of g-C3N4 makes it a

A nanocomplex of C₆₀ fullerene with cisplatin: design, characterization and toxicity

• Svitlana Prylutska,
• Svitlana Politenkova,
• Kateryna Afanasieva,
• Volodymyr Korolovych,
• Kateryna Bogutska,
• Andriy Sivolob,
• Larysa Skivka,
• Maxim Evstigneev,
• Viktor Kostjukov,
• Yuriy Prylutskyy and
• Uwe Ritter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1494–1501, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.149

• negatively charged C60 molecules and attraction of the C60 fullerenes due to hydrophobic and van der Waals forces. Thereby, the negative potential of C60+Cis clusters is an important factor responsible for the stabilization of this aqueous system. The structural and energetic peculiarities of C60+Cis

Preparation of thick silica coatings on carbon fibers with fine-structured silica nanotubes induced by a self-assembly process

• Benjamin Baumgärtner,
• Hendrik Möller,
• Thomas Neumann and
• Dirk Volkmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1145–1155, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.116

• separate (non-immobilized) silica particles. In principle, catalytic active polyamines can be localized on the surface of carbon fibers by covalent linkage or by weak van der Waals forces. The latter will be demonstrated for the self-assembly of long-chain polyamines, namely LPEI, in the following chapter

• with surface-confined LPEI aggregates While the short-chain polyamine TEPA was covalently bound to the carbon fiber surface, the suitability of linear poly(ethylenimine) for a self-assembly process can be used to localize the polyamine on the fiber surface via van der Waals forces. This way, a coating

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

• covalently bonded, hexagonally coordinated S–Mo–S layers, bonded to neighbouring layers by weak van der Waals forces [1][2][3]. One of the unique features of MoS2 is the polymorphism with distinct electronic characteristics [4]. Depending on the arrangement of S atoms, several distinct symmetries may form

Stable Au–C bonds to the substrate for fullerene-based nanostructures

• Taras Chutora,
• Jesús Redondo,
• Bruno de la Torre,
• Martin Švec,
• Pavel Jelínek and
• Héctor Vázquez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1073–1079, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.109

• energies of these two structures is (in the absence of van der Waals forces) close to zero. This indicates that changes in the electronic structure arising from the vacancy when it is oriented towards vacuum do not significantly affect the metal–molecule contact. In contrast to the value of the defect-down

Triptycene-terminated thiolate and selenolate monolayers on Au(111)

• Jinxuan Liu,
• Martin Kind,
• Björn Schüpbach,
• Daniel Käfer,
• Stefanie Winkler,
• Wenhua Zhang,
• Andreas Terfort and
• Christof Wöll

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 892–905, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.91

• nature of the backbones of the SAM-building molecules [1][4]. It is well-known that long-chained alkyl moieties [9] promote the formation of well-ordered thiolate monolayers on gold via van der Waals forces. Another example for highly crystalline monolayers are biphenyl [10][11][12] and terphenyl [13][14

Modeling adsorption of brominated, chlorinated and mixed bromo/chloro-dibenzo-p-dioxins on C₆₀ fullerene using Nano-QSPR

• Piotr Urbaszek,
• Agnieszka Gajewicz,
• Celina Sikorska,
• Maciej Haranczyk and
• Tomasz Puzyn

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 752–761, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.78

• method with partially implemented experimental parameters from different databases. Since it is recognized as one of the best existing methods for showing weak interactions like Van der Waals forces and π–π interactions [53][54][55][56], it was applied in the presented study. The 6-31++G(d,p) basis set

Analysis and modification of defective surface aggregates on PCDTBT:PCBM solar cell blends using combined Kelvin probe, conductive and bimodal atomic force microscopy

• Hanaul Noh,
• Alfredo J. Diaz and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 579–589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.62

• electrostatic [22] and van der Waals forces and topography can be avoided. On the other hand, aged samples stored for several weeks under ambient conditions show topographical features corresponding to the structures found in the phase and potential measurements (see Figure S3, Supporting Information File 1

Graphene functionalised by laser-ablated V₂O₅ for a highly sensitive NH₃ sensor

• Margus Kodu,
• Artjom Berholts,
• Tauno Kahro,
• Mati Kook,
• Peeter Ritslaid,
• Helina Seemen,
• Tea Avarmaa,
• Harry Alles and
• Raivo Jaaniso

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 571–578, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.61

• charged atoms on the surface. Consequently, the adsorption energy is due to van der Waals forces, and may be less or comparable to kBT (where kB is the Boltzmann constant and T the absolute temperature) for gases at room temperature. The introduction of defects and dopant atoms into graphene can

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

• that is polymer-depleted because of increased steric hindrance. Non-specific protein-DNA interactions are mediated by electrostatic interactions with the charged DNA backbone, hydrogen bonding, van der Waals forces and hydrophobic interactions [62][63][64]. The whole non-specific interaction can push

When the going gets rough – studying the effect of surface roughness on the adhesive abilities of tree frogs

• Niall Crawford,
• Thomas Endlein,
• Jonathan T. Pham,
• Mathis Riehle and
• W. Jon P. Barnes

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2116–2131, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.201

• situation where capillary forces would be absent. Additionally, since toe pads make close contact to surfaces, a role for van der Waals forces cannot be excluded [3]. However, little evidence was found for such forces in a recent AFM study of the toe pads of Litoria [24]. Capillary forces are highest when

Solvent-mediated conductance increase of dodecanethiol-stabilized gold nanoparticle monolayers

• Patrick A. Reissner,
• Jean-Nicolas Tisserant,
• Antoni Sánchez-Ferrer,
• Raffaele Mezzenga and
• Andreas Stemmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2057–2064, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.196

• dependence can be expected if the decrease in lattice constant is driven by an energy minimization process. Attractive van-der-Waals forces between adjacent nanoparticles can cause agglomeration of nanoparticles, which we observed after removing the alkane ligands by UV/ozone treatment. However, van-der

• -Waals forces rather decrease slightly in a liquid medium in comparison to air. A slow compaction of the nanoparticle monolayer as we observed may be caused either by a collapse of alkyl tails or by partial interdigitation of alkyl tails between nanoparticles. The good solubility of 1-dodecanethiol in

Morphology of SiO₂ films as a key factor in alignment of liquid crystals with negative dielectric anisotropy

• Volodymyr Tkachenko,
• Antigone Marino,
• Eva Otón,
• Noureddine Bennis and
• Josè Manuel Otón

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1743–1748, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.167

• homeotropically, respectively. Such behavior can be explained by induced dipole–dipole interaction between LC and a smoothed oxide surface derived from van der Waals forces [3][8]. When α increases from 60° to 85°, the preferred orientation of LC with positive Δε switches from orthogonal to parallel to the plane

Filled and empty states of Zn-TPP films deposited on Fe(001)-p(1×1)O

• Gianlorenzo Bussetti,
• Alberto Calloni,
• Rossella Yivlialin,
• Andrea Picone,
• Federico Bottegoni and
• Marco Finazzi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1527–1531, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.146

• limited to weak van der Waals forces [11]. Consequently, changes in the energy position of the different spectroscopic features of the 1 ML film with respect to the reference layer are usually interpreted in terms of intensity strength of the molecule–substrate interaction. In Figure 2, we report the

Surface roughness rather than surface chemistry essentially affects insect adhesion

• Matt W. England,
• Tomoya Sato,
• Makoto Yagihashi,
• Atsushi Hozumi,
• Stanislav N. Gorb and
• Elena V. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1471–1479, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.139

• (Figure 4a,b). In the latter case, it is presumably due to wetting reduction by the pad fluid (Figure 4c,d). Additionally, at the sites of solid–solid contact between insect pads and substrates, the true contact area and contribution of van der Waals forces are believed to be effectively reduced for both

Influence of ambient humidity on the attachment ability of ladybird beetles (Coccinella septempunctata)

• Lars Heepe,
• Jonas O. Wolff and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1322–1329, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.123

• [14], and geckos, revealed in measurements with living animals [11] and with isolated setae [10]. This is particularly interesting since both types of adhesive systems (wet and dry) are supposed to be based on different physical interactions (capillarity versus van der Waals forces). For the dry

Reasons and remedies for the agglomeration of multilayered graphene and carbon nanotubes in polymers

• Rasheed Atif and
• Fawad Inam

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1174–1196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.109

• dispersion state of filler as multilayered graphene (MLG) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) tend to agglomerate due to van der Waals forces. The agglomeration can be avoided by using organic solvents, selecting suitable dispersion and production methods, and functionalizing the fillers. Another proposed method is

• nanocomposites and to gain knowledge about their biocompatibility and performance in living organisms. One of the main issues in the production of polymer nanocomposites is the dispersion state of fillers, because MLG and CNTs tend to agglomerate due to van der Waals forces. The agglomeration can be avoided by

• about 1 TPa (more than steel by factor of 5) [2]. MWNTs comprise a number of concentric graphene cylinders, which is known as “Russian doll” structure. There are van der Waals forces between adjacent graphene layers [40]. MWNTs have diameters and lengths in the ranges of 10–20 nm and of 10–50 μm