High-resolution noncontact AFM and Kelvin probe force microscopy investigations of self-assembled photovoltaic donor–acceptor dyads

• Benjamin Grévin,
• Pierre-Olivier Schwartz,
• Laure Biniek,
• Martin Brinkmann,
• Nicolas Leclerc,
• Elena Zaborova and
• Stéphane Méry

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 799–808, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.71

• following, all KPFM measurements under illumination were performed at a wavelength of 515 nm with an optical power of 15 mW. For TEM investigations, the thin films were coated with a thin amorphous carbon film and removed from the glass substrate by floating on a diluted aqueous HF solution (10 wt %) and

Orientation of FePt nanoparticles on top of a-SiO₂/Si(001), MgO(001) and sapphire(0001): effect of thermal treatments and influence of substrate and particle size

• Martin Schilling,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Zaoli Zhang,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Ute Kaiser and
• Ulf Wiedwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 591–604, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.52

• conductivity before dip coating (applied for the small particles). Alternatively, such a surface conductivity was achieved by in situ flash evaporation of a few nanometers of amorphous carbon on top of the already prepared particles directly before RHEED inspection (applied for the larger particles). The

Synthesis and applications of carbon nanomaterials for energy generation and storage

• Marco Notarianni,
• Jinzhang Liu,
• Kristy Vernon and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 149–196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.17

• SWNTs, MWNTs, and impurities produced by these methods is dependent on the exact reactor conditions. Impurities include fullerenes, metal catalyst particles encapsulated by graphitic polyhedrons, and amorphous carbon. The majority of impurities can be removed by purification processes based on nitric

Plasma fluorination of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes: functionalization and thermal stability

• Claudia Struzzi,
• Mattia Scardamaglia,
• Axel Hemberg,
• Luca Petaccia,
• Jean-François Colomer,
• Rony Snyders and
• Carla Bittencourt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2263–2271, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.232

• the D’-band) [48][49]. For the spectrum recorded after heating the sample to 900 °C, an additional D3-peak (1466 cm−1) was necessary for the fitting. The origin of this mode is not clear, but it has been attributed to amorphous carbon fraction of soot (e.g., organic molecules, fragments or functional

Focused particle beam-induced processing

• Michael Huth and
• Armin Gölzhäuser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1883–1885, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.191

• nanowires [7]. In the article by Oleksandr Dobrovolskiy and colleagues [8], different postgrowth purification treatments for platinum and cobalt FEBID structures are employed to fine-tune the magnetic properties of heterostructures. A novel application of electron beam-induced deposition of amorphous carbon

Formation of pure Cu nanocrystals upon post-growth annealing of Cu–C material obtained from focused electron beam induced deposition: comparison of different methods

• Aleksandra Szkudlarek,
• Alfredo Rodrigues Vaz,
• Yucheng Zhang,
• Andrzej Rudkowski,
• Czesław Kapusta,
• Rolf Erni,
• Stanislav Moshkalev and
• Ivo Utke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1508–1517, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.156

• ]. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed that dot, square, and line deposits from Cu(II)(hfac)2 on an amorphous carbon membrane were amorphous (Figure 2). In contrast, as-deposited freestanding rods from earlier FEBID experiments with (hfac)Cu(I)VTMS showed small Cu nanocrystals homogeneously dispersed in

• during in situ TEM analysis. Conventional and IR laser annealing experiments were combined with in situ four-point probe resistance measurements. TEM of as-deposited lines and squares from Cu(hfac)2 on an amorphous carbon membrane on a TEM grid. a) An overview of deposits, b) zoom into a line deposit, c

Thermal treatment of magnetite nanoparticles

• Beata Kalska-Szostko,
• Urszula Wykowska,
• Dariusz Satula and
• Per Nordblad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1385–1396, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.143

• penetration. TEM microscopy The morphology of magnetite nanopowders before (as prepared) and after heating at 500 °C was observed by TEM on the powdered sample supported on a 400 mesh Cu grid covered by amorphous carbon. The obtained images are depicted in series in Figure 2. In Figure 2, six images of

Enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit in engineered graphene nanoribbons

• Hatef Sadeghi,
• Sara Sangtarash and
• Colin J. Lambert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1176–1182, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.119

• scattering region and S is the overlap matrix. Results and Discussion Thermal properties of graphene Carbon-based materials show a wide range of thermal properties from about 0.01 W·mK−1 in amorphous carbon to above 2,000 W·mK−1 at room temperature in graphene [1][16][17][18][19] and even higher in few layer

Magnetic properties of iron cluster/chromium matrix nanocomposites

• Arne Fischer,
• Robert Kruk,
• Di Wang and
• Horst Hahn

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1158–1163, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.117

• a TEM grid covered with a thin amorphous carbon film while the whole sample thickness including top and bottom Cr layers was just 5 nm. Deposition parameters such as the cluster deposition rate and the sample temperature during deposition were identical with the ones used for the other samples. The

• layers of the AFM Cr surrounding the FM Fe cluster. EFTEM (left) and STEM (right) micrographs of a 10 vol % Fe1000/Cr sample prepared on a TEM grid + amorphous carbon film with an Fe cluster equivalent thickness of 0.2 nm. The EFTEM image shows the Fe cluster distribution in the sample and the STEM image

Patterning technique for gold nanoparticles on substrates using a focused electron beam

• Takahiro Noriki,
• Shogo Abe,
• Kotaro Kajikawa and
• Masayuki Shimojo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1010–1015, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.104

• these bands suggests that amorphous carbon or diamond-like carbon exists on the specimen. It should be noted that no such peaks were observed for the sample without electron beam irradiation (after the steps (i) and (iii)). Figure 6 shows a transmission electron microscope (TEM) image of a nanoparticle

• organic molecules formed on the surfaces of the substrate and the nanoparticles, and that the amorphous carbon was formed during step (ii). This amorphous carbon is considered to fix the particles onto the substrate. The immobilization of the nanoparticle on the substrate surface is considered to occur

• due to the deposition of amorphous carbon. This amorphous carbon most likely originates from organic molecules around the nanoparticles, as similar mechanisms of decomposition and deposition occur in electron beam-induced deposition (EBID) [9][10][11]. Fujita et al. reported that amorphous carbon was

Pt- and Pd-decorated MWCNTs for vapour and gas detection at room temperature

• Hamdi Baccar,
• Atef Thamri,
• Pierrick Clément,
• Eduard Llobet and
• Adnane Abdelghani

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 919–927, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.95

• Pd nanoparticles. Sputtering allows for an oxygen plasma treatment that removes amorphous carbon from the surface of the carbon nanotubes and creates oxygenated surface defects in which metal nanoparticles nucleate within a few minutes. The decoration with the 2 nm Pt or the 3 nm Pd nanoparticles is

Electron-stimulated purification of platinum nanostructures grown via focused electron beam induced deposition

• Brett B. Lewis,
• Michael G. Stanford,
• Jason D. Fowlkes,
• Kevin Lester,
• Harald Plank and
• Philip D. Rack

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 907–918, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.94

• error bars based on multiple measurements are quite large because the the purified layer is very thin. This suggests the O2 reactant surface concentration is relatively constant at the growth front. Based on amorphous carbon O2 etching studies by Hopf et al. [22] we previously suggested that two types

• facilitated via a catalytic O2-Pt dissociative adsorption process [18][23]; specifically, whereas O2 has a very low adsorption energy (and thus short residence time) on amorphous carbon the Pt surface promotes a dissociative adsorption process with a higher binding energy with consequently higher equilibrium

• form that is assumed to instantaneously oxidize amorphous carbon. The resulting COx is liberated from the deposit via subsequent diffusion to the surface. The details of the simulation will be provided in a future publication and only a brief summary is provided here. The Monte Carlo simulation is

Observation of a photoinduced, resonant tunneling effect in a carbon nanotube–silicon heterojunction

• Carla Aramo,
• Antonio Ambrosio,
• Michelangelo Ambrosio,
• Maurizio Boscardin,
• Paola Castrucci,
• Michele Crivellari,
• Marco Cilmo,
• Maurizio De Crescenzi,
• Francesco De Nicola,
• Emanuele Fiandrini,
• Valentina Grossi,
• Pasqualino Maddalena,
• Maurizio Passacantando,
• Sandro Santucci,
• Manuela Scarselli and
• Antonio Valentini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 704–710, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.71

• the inset a Raman spectrum of MWCNT exhibits two main peaks attributed to the D- and G-bands. The G-band at ≈1600 cm−1 corresponds to the splitting of the E2g stretching mode of graphite. The intense D-band indicates the presence of defective graphitic structures or amorphous carbon [14]. Regarding

Raman spectroscopy as a tool to investigate the structure and electronic properties of carbon-atom wires

• Alberto Milani,
• Matteo Tommasini,
• Valeria Russo,
• Andrea Li Bassi,
• Andrea Lucotti,
• Franco Cataldo and
• Carlo S. Casari

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 480–491, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.49

• pulsed microplasma cluster source (PMCS) developed by Milani and co-workers) resulted in sp–sp2 hybrid amorphous carbon films with an estimated sp content up to 40% [45][46]. Unfortunately, the sp phase easily undergoes rearrangement to the sp2 phase when the sample is exposed to air due to oxidative and

• cross-linking effects and thus requires in situ characterization techniques, as reported in many papers [7][47]. A similar approach was exploited using thermal or laser vaporization cluster sources [6][48]. sp carbon has also been produced by ion irradiation of amorphous carbon [49] and by femtosecond

• (fs) laser irradiation of a graphite target [50]. fs laser pulses were used to produce amorphous carbon films containing sp, sp2 and sp3 fractions, however control over their relative quantities was not demonstrated [51]. Isolated wires can be produced by laser ablation (with both fs and ns pulses) of

Boosting the local anodic oxidation of silicon through carbon nanofiber atomic force microscopy probes

• Gemma Rius,
• Matteo Lorenzoni,
• Soichiro Matsui,
• Masaki Tanemura and
• Francesc Perez-Murano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 215–222, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.20

• solid amorphous carbon, while a CNT is a tubular crystalline nanomaterial, therefore we expect both common and distinctive features of CNF as a tool for LAO-AFM, as compared to CNT probes. To the best of our knowledge, we report for the first time the use of CNF for SPL. Our CNFs are batch grown by ion

Gas sensing properties of nanocrystalline diamond at room temperature

• Marina Davydova,
• Pavel Kulha,
• Alexandr Laposa,
• Karel Hruska,
• Pavel Demo and
• Alexander Kromka

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2339–2345, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.243

• ; and deposition time, 5 h. Figure 1a shows the SEM image of the surface morphology of the sensor substrate (Si/SiO2 + IDEs with a separation of 200 µm) coated with the NCD layer using a 40 min nucleation time. This top view depicts the presence of an amorphous carbon shell at the diamond grains (film

Electrical contacts to individual SWCNTs: A review

• Wei Liu,
• Christofer Hierold and
• Miroslav Haluska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2202–2215, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.229

• a more controllable manner. Amorphous carbon was deposited between Ni (as catalysts for graphitization) and semiconducting SWCNTs. The amorphous carbon transforms to graphitic carbon by annealing at 850 °C (as shown in Figure 7b). By this approach, the effective contact area between the metal and

Donor–acceptor graphene-based hybrid materials facilitating photo-induced electron-transfer reactions

• Anastasios Stergiou,
• Georgia Pagona and
• Nikos Tagmatarchis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1580–1589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.170

• of GO sometimes leads to amorphous carbon [12], and often the graphene sp2-network is incompletely restored. Therefore the properties of the resulting rGO significantly deviate from those of pristine graphene. Hence, this particular approach in not suitable for applications in which the novel

Electron-beam induced deposition and autocatalytic decomposition of Co(CO)₃NO

• Florian Vollnhals,
• Martin Drost,
• Fan Tu,
• Esther Carrasco,
• Andreas Späth,
• Rainer H. Fink,
• Hans-Peter Steinrück and
• Hubertus Marbach

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1175–1185, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.129

• contaminants in the deposit [21]. Based on the irradiation of cold (105 K) Co(CO)3NO films of about 2.5 nm thickness on amorphous carbon and Au substrates with 500 eV electrons under UHV conditions, the following decomposition mechanism was proposed [22]: At a low electron dose (<5 × 1016 e−/cm2), one or two

Growth and characterization of CNT–TiO₂ heterostructures

• Yucheng Zhang,
• Ivo Utke,
• Johann Michler,
• Gabriele Ilari,
• Marta D. Rossell and
• Rolf Erni

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 946–955, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.108

• * and σ* peaks at the C_K edge, the amount of sp2 and sp3 hybridizations can be quantified in amorphous carbon, which determines the physical properties [51][52]. Similarly, Muller et al. have used the ELNES signals to produce a map of sp2 and sp3 at the interface of diamond grown on Si/SiO2 with a sub

Gas sensing with gold-decorated vertically aligned carbon nanotubes

• Prasantha R. Mudimela,
• Mattia Scardamaglia,
• Oriol González-León,
• Nicolas Reckinger,
• Rony Snyders,
• Eduard Llobet,
• Carla Bittencourt and
• Jean-François Colomer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 910–918, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.104

• Doniach–Sunjic lineshape with an asymmetry parameter α equal to 0.1. Voigt profiles were used to reproduce the other features observed in the spectrum: the peak at 284.9 eV is associated to photoelectrons emitted from amorphous carbon atoms with sp3 bonds, formed during the CNTs synthesis as also

• for sp3 amorphous carbon, purple for C-O and dark blue for π-plasmon excitations. Room temperature detection of NO2 for sensors with different CNT lengths. White pulses indicate the exposure to 0.5 ppm, 1 ppm and 1 ppm of nitrogen dioxide (duration was 15 min). Grey bars indicate the periods of

Chemi- vs physisorption in the radical functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes under microwaves

• Victor Mamane,
• Guillaume Mercier,
• Junidah Abdul Shukor,
• Jérôme Gleize,
• Aziz Azizan,
• Yves Fort and
• Brigitte Vigolo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 537–545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.63

• prolonged reaction times can induce a detachment of the functional groups from the CNT surface [15][28][29] or allow the removal of metallic and amorphous carbon impurities resulting in the efficient primary purification of CNTs [30]. With the aim of optimizing a CNT functionalization approach based on

En route to controlled catalytic CVD synthesis of densely packed and vertically aligned nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube arrays

• Slawomir Boncel,
• Sebastian W. Pattinson,
• Valérie Geiser,
• Milo S. P. Shaffer and
• Krzysztof K. K. Koziol

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 219–233, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.24

• , practically no amorphous carbon was observed for all of the N-CNT arrays of high quality. SEM images of the products from Syntheses I–IX are shown in Figure 3. In general, N-CNT films of different thicknesses were obtained depending on the concentration of the nitrogen species in the hot zone, which act as

• (graphitisation) of N-CNTs. It must be emphasized here that the ratio ID/IG not only reflects of the presence of amorphous carbon (i.e., ‘cauliflowers’) but, particularly in our case, corresponds to the degree of graphitisation. In general, the ratio ID/IG reflects a number of structural defects, the

• concentration of amorphous carbon and it is sensitive to doping. In the case of N-CNTs, the D-peak originates not only from structural defects but also from the covalent heteroatomic doping of the nanotubes. Firstly, changes in the positions of critical G- and D-peaks were found for N-CNTs (3% N) (ωG = 1585 cm

Controlled synthesis and tunable properties of ultrathin silica nanotubes through spontaneous polycondensation on polyamine fibrils

• Jian-Jun Yuan,
• Pei-Xin Zhu,
• Daisuke Noda and
• Ren-Hua Jin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 793–804, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.90

• composites could be further increased to 16.2 wt % (“c” in Figure 9A) by performing a second PSS adsorption (polymer content: 65.9 wt %). The Raman peaks of D and G bands ascribed to amorphous carbon then became stronger (“c” in Figure 9B). In the TEM images, one can still see a fibrous network in a carbon

Influence of particle size and fluorination ratio of CF_x precursor compounds on the electrochemical performance of C–FeF₂ nanocomposites for reversible lithium storage

• Ben Breitung,
• M. Anji Reddy,
• Venkata Sai Kiran Chakravadhanula,
• Michael Engel,
• Christian Kübel,
• Annie K. Powell,
• Horst Hahn and
• Maximilian Fichtner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 705–713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.80

• . For C(FeF2)0.5_300 the same G-mode position was measured, but the I(D)/I(G) ratio decreased to 1.73. During a transition from nanocrystalline graphite to amorphous carbon the VDOS (vibrational density of states) of graphite changes, the D-mode intensity decreases and the G mode retains its intensity