Hexagonal boron nitride: a review of the emerging material platform for single-photon sources and the spin–photon interface

• Stefania Castelletto,
• Faraz A. Inam,
• Shin-ichiro Sato and
• Alberto Boretti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 740–769, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.61

• wafer-scale fabrication. This must be available at the same level of purity, with doping control and electronic compatibility, as well as scalable methodologies to create a large number of arrays of point defects with controlled emission to remotely entangle them and couple to ancilla qubits for quantum

Effect of Ag loading position on the photocatalytic performance of TiO₂ nanocolumn arrays

• Jinghan Xu,
• Yanqi Liu and
• Yan Zhao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 717–728, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.59

• (200–400 nm), and the high hole–electron pair recombination rate restricts its photocatalytic efficiency [6][7]. Many efforts have been devoted to solve these problems with the aim of improving the catalytic performance of TiO2, which include doping with nonmetal elements [8], dye sensitization [9

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

• to introduce N-surface-functional groups to carbon nanoparticles made from biomass and biowaste and to produce stable photoluminescent CDs with excellent water-wettability. Keywords: biomass; carbon dots; hydrothermal process; laser ablation; N-doping; photoluminescence; Introduction Carbon-based

• the graphitic, pyrrolic, amine and pyridinic nitrogen. All these results suggest that the LAL processing of the annealed-HTC carbon particles in NH4OH solutions is an effective method for doping N into carbon nanoparticles, and the amount of doped N can be simply controlled by the concentration of the

Luminescent gold nanoclusters for bioimaging applications

• Nonappa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 533–546, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.42

• complexes and SCQD-based nanomaterials. To improve the quantum yield and PL, various approaches have been developed including ligand engineering, selective doping to create alloy clusters, aggregation-induced emission, selective etching and self-assembly [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. Ligands

Electrochemically derived functionalized graphene for bulk production of hydrogen peroxide

• Munaiah Yeddala,
• Pallavi Thakur,
• Anugraha A and
• Tharangattu N. Narayanan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 432–442, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.34

• metal-based technologies [28][29]. For example, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been well studied for their catalytic activity, although conflicting reports exist due to the presence of unavoidable metallic impurities present [30][31][32][33]. With the emergence of graphene, heteroatom doping in sp2

DFT calculations of the structure and stability of copper clusters on MoS₂

• Cara-Lena Nies and
• Michael Nolan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 391–406, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.30

• , or doping with, various elements including transition metals [3][9][24][25][26][27][28], alkali and alkaline-earth metals [29][30][31] as well as non-metals such as H, B, C, O and N [31]. Work involving atom adsorption on 2D materials can generally be divided into two categories: single-atom

Facile biogenic fabrication of hydroxyapatite nanorods using cuttlefish bone and their bactericidal and biocompatibility study

• Satheeshkumar Balu,
• Manisha Vidyavathy Sundaradoss,
• Swetha Andra and
• Jaison Jeevanandam

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 285–295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.21

• , whereas moderate antibacterial activity was observed against B. cereus and S. flexnari. In addition, they also possess non-hemolytic activity with significant activity in simulated body fluid [59]. Hence, it is evident that the antibacterial activity of the present work can be improved via doping and the

Nonequilibrium Kondo effect in a graphene-coupled quantum dot in the presence of a magnetic field

• Levente Máthé and
• Ioan Grosu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 225–239, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.17

• quantum dot. An analytical formula for the Kondo temperature is derived for electron and hole doping of the graphene leads. The Kondo temperature vanishes in the vicinity of the particle–hole symmetry point and at the Dirac point. In the case of particle–hole asymmetry, the Kondo temperature has a finite

• results, we have to restrict the calculations to the limit of 2TK < 2εd + U − μ < 2D that exludes the existence of the particle–hole symmetry point. In the following, by taking into account that the chemical potential in graphene leads μ can be tuned by various doping techniques, we discuss two different

• cases concerning TK: (i) μ > 0 that corresponds to electron doping and (ii) μ < 0 that corresponds to hole doping. For μ > 0, we obtain from Equation 15 and Equation 16: and for μ < 0 we find: where we used the properties of the Lambert W function, and e denotes now the Euler’s constant. To the best of

Recent progress in perovskite solar cells: the perovskite layer

• Xianfeng Dai,
• Ke Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 51–60, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.5

• can effectively improve the charge transport efficiency by eliminating the defect and trap density in the perovskite film. The resulting planar PSCs doped with 5 mol % FAAc achieved a PCE of 18.90%, which corresponds to an enhancement of the PCE of over 20% compared to those fabricated by doping with

• C6H18N2O2PbI4 (EDBEPbI4) chains into 3D perovskites. The 2D/3D perovskites solved the discrepancy between PCE and stability. XRD patterns and UV–vis absorption spectra, retracing the formation of such heterojunctions, are shown in Figure 4b and Figure 4c. Doping with EDBEPbI4 gradually increases the grain size

• ][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. Structural characterization and morphology. (a) Schematic illustration of the structure of the 2D/3D PSCs. (b) XRD patterns as a function of the 2D perovskite doping concentration and (c) UV–vis absorption spectra of the (EDBEPbI4)x(MAPbI3)1−x films. (d–g

Synthesis of amorphous and graphitized porous nitrogen-doped carbon spheres as oxygen reduction reaction catalysts

• Maximilian Wassner,
• Markus Eckardt,
• Andreas Reyer,
• Thomas Diemant,
• Michael S. Elsaesser,
• R. Jürgen Behm and
• Nicola Hüsing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1–15, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.1

• synthesized by hydrothermal treatment of a glucose solution yielding carbon spheres with sizes of 330 ± 50 nm, followed by nitrogen doping via heat treatment in ammonia atmosphere. The influence of a) varying the nitrogen doping temperature (550–1000 °C) and b) of a catalytic graphitization prior to nitrogen

• doping on the carbon sphere morphology, structure, elemental composition, N bonding configuration as well as porosity is investigated in detail. For the N-doped carbon spheres, the maximum nitrogen content was found at a doping temperature of 700 °C, with a decrease of the N content for higher

• temperatures. The overall nitrogen content of the graphitized N-doped carbon spheres is lower than that of the amorphous carbon spheres, however, also the microporosity decreases strongly with graphitization. Comparison with the electrocatalytic behavior in the ORR shows that in addition to the N-doping, the

Long-term stability and scale-up of noncovalently bound gold nanoparticle-siRNA suspensions

• Anna V. Epanchintseva,
• Julia E. Poletaeva,
• Dmitrii V. Pyshnyi,
• Elena I. Ryabchikova and
• Inna A. Pyshnaya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2568–2578, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.248

• nucleic acids [18][19][20][21]. Then, we used AuNP-siRNA as a core for nanoconstruction by covering this with a lipid envelope and doping with an amphiphilic peptide. The construction was shown to penetrate cells that consistently expressed the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and effectively suppress the

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

Semitransparent Sb₂S₃ thin film solar cells by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis for use in solar windows

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Lothar Weinhardt,
• Monika Blum,
• Clemens Heske,
• Wanli Yang,
• Ilona Oja Acik and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2396–2409, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.230

• thin film when it is grown by CBD from an aqueous solution [18]. In 2018, PCE ≈ 5.7% was achieved for a cell based on a spin-coated Sb2S3 absorber, and the same group further increased the PCE of this cell to 6.4% by Zn doping during spin-coating of Sb2S3 [39][40]. Soon after, by doping Sb2S3 with CsOH

Deterministic placement of ultra-bright near-infrared color centers in arrays of silicon carbide micropillars

• Stefania Castelletto,
• Abdul Salam Al Atem,
• Faraz Ahmed Inam,
• Hans Jürgen von Bardeleben,
• Sophie Hameau,
• Ahmed Fahad Almutairi,
• Gérard Guillot,
• Shin-ichiro Sato,
• Alberto Boretti and
• Jean Marie Bluet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2383–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.229

• SPS at room temperature. The lifetime associated with VSi in the gap area was measured as τ = 2.35 ± 0.01 ns, similar for all samples. These values are lower than the lifetimes of 6 ns in intrinsic 4H-SiC [8][58] and of 5 ns in n-type 4H-SiC [59]. This is attributed to material doping reducing the

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

• enhance the performance of the solar cell. In addition, the influence of the concentration of the FeS2 NCs (0, 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 wt %) on the solar cell performance was investigated. The PV parameters were enhanced at a specific doping level (0.5 wt %). The PCE could be improved by about 21% compared to

Targeted therapeutic effect against the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 with a CuFe₂O₄/silica/cisplatin nanocomposite formulation

• B. Rabindran Jermy,
• Vijaya Ravinayagam,
• Widyan A. Alamoudi,
• Dana Almohazey,
• Hatim Dafalla,
• Lina Hussain Allehaibi,
• Abdulhadi Baykal,
• Muhammet S. Toprak and
• Thirunavukkarasu Somanathan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2217–2228, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.214

• surface anisotropy effect [9][10]. Among the ferrites, copper ferrites are interesting due to their superior conductive and magnetic characteristics. A mesoporous Cu1−xZnxFe2O4 system has been reported using a nanocasting technique [11]. Based on the Bertaut analysis, the doping of Zn tends to form mixed

Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond for nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging applications

• Alberto Boretti,
• Lorenzo Rosa,
• Jonathan Blackledge and
• Stefania Castelletto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2128–2151, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.207

• using complex spin manipulation sequences. This approach results in the best achievable sensitivity of magnetic field sensing based on this atomic sensor. Alternatively, a high concentration of NV centers are formed close to the surface of bulk diamond using delta-doping techniques, and in this case

Improved adsorption and degradation performance by S-doping of (001)-TiO₂

• Xiao-Yu Sun,
• Xian Zhang,
• Xiao Sun,
• Ni-Xian Qian,
• Min Wang and
• Yong-Qing Ma

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2116–2127, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.206

• , 2, 3, 4 and 5. The S-doped samples synthesized at 250 °C exhibit a significantly improved photocatalytic performance. More precisely, S-doping has the following effects on the material: (1) S can adopt different chemical states in the samples. Specifically, it exists in the form of S2− replacing O2

• − at a ratio of RS/Ti = 1 and also in the form of S6+ replacing Ti4+ at RS/Ti ≥ 2. As a result, S-doping causes a lattice distortion, because the ionic radii of S2− and S6+ differ from that of the O2− and Ti4+ ions. (2) S-doping increases the adsorption coefficient Ae for methylene blue (MB) from 0.9

• % to 68.5% due to the synergistic effects of the oxygen vacancies, increased number of surface chemical adsorption centers as a result of SO42− adsorption on the TiO2 surface and the larger pore size. (3) S-doping increases the MB degradation rate from 6.9 × 10−2 min−1 to 18.2 × 10−2 min−1 due to an

The importance of design in nanoarchitectonics: multifractality in MACE silicon nanowires

• Stefania Carapezzi and
• Anna Cavallini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2094–2102, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.204

• (0.44 M). Two types of MACE Si NWs have been synthesised, with differences in 1) the doping of the source substrates and 2) the etching time. Longer etching times yield longer NWs. For one sample (labelled from now on SiNW1; Figure 2a) the source substrate was P-doped with a doping density of 1015 cm−3

• and a NW length of 5 μm. For the other sample (labelled SiNW2; Figure 2b) the source substrate was As-doped with a doping density of about 1018 cm−3 and a NW length of 1.3 μm. Figure 3a and Figure 3b are the masked images obtained applying a height threshold on the AFM measurements of Figure 2. The

Improvement of the thermoelectric properties of a MoO₃ monolayer through oxygen vacancies

• Wenwen Zheng,
• Wei Cao,
• Ziyu Wang,
• Huixiong Deng,
• Jing Shi and
• Rui Xiong

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2031–2038, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.199

• materials. From insulating to semiconducting and conducting, TMOs exhibit wide-ranging electrical and magnetic characteristics that depend on their geometric structure, doping concentration and stoichiometry ratio [4]. TMOs have been used in many fields such as Li-ion batteries, electrochemical capacitors

Review of advanced sensor devices employing nanoarchitectonics concepts

• Katsuhiko Ariga,
• Tatsuyuki Makita,
• Masato Ito,
• Taizo Mori,
• Shun Watanabe and
• Jun Takeya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2014–2030, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.198

• and resulted in a highly sensitive sensing material for aniline vapor [125]. Layer-by-layer structures of mesoporous carbon capsules can work as sensing membranes capable of selectively sensing through the doping of secondary sensing units [126]. As an emerging nanoporous material, metal–organic

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

• surface. The emission corresponding to such a structure is considered to originate from the conjugated sp2-domains [16][17] and can be adjusted either by modulating the dimension of these sp2-domains [18] or through surface modifications [19][20]. For instance, doping of the CDots with heteroatoms such as

• nitrogen-doped CDots (N-CDots). The doping with nitrogen enables us to tune the resulting emission color of the CDots from blue to green. In order to obtain color conversion layers with these N-CDots, a mixture of water-based polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and N-CDots were prepared and subsequently processed

Prestress-loading effect on the current–voltage characteristics of a piezoelectric p–n junction together with the corresponding mechanical tuning laws

• Wanli Yang,
• Shuaiqi Fan,
• Yuxing Liang and
• Yuantai Hu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1833–1843, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.178

• on how much influence of the deformation-induced electric field can reach the SCZ. Furthermore, it is also found that the deformation-induced electric field becomes weak with increasing doping because the higher doping is corresponding to the stronger electric leakage. Thus, the higher mechanical

• ZnO nanowire based on the linear phenomenological theory of piezoelectric semiconductors. In their studies, the electric leakage of a bent ZnO nanowire is connected to the semiconductor properties and concluded that a lower doping concentration is more suitable for a bent ZnO nanowire to harvest

• –n junction can be written as where (p(n0,p0)(x), n(n0,p0)(x)) and (NA, ND) are carrier concentrations and doping concentrations, respectively. The subscripts “p” and “n” represent p-zone and n-zone, respectively. q = 1.602 × 10−19 C is the electronic charge. For a piezoelectric p–n junction exposed

Growth dynamics and light scattering of gold nanoparticles in situ synthesized at high concentration in thin polymer films

• Corentin Guyot,
• Philippe Vandestrick,
• Ingrid Marenne,
• Olivier Deparis and
• Michel Voué

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1768–1777, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.172

• in the composite less than 1%, the effect of doping is usually not detected experimentally using MG-EMA when the optical measurements are carried out out-of-resonance. This effect has been modeled in Supporting Information File Supporting Information File 1. Moreover, going from standard ellipsometry

• the sample temperature reaches Tg, the glass transition temperature of the polymer. For bulk PVA, Tg equals 85 °C [32]. As already reported for other polymers, Tg is also a function of the film thickness and differs from the bulk value of Tg [33]. It can also be modified by doping. Since the

• neglectable. Theoretical calculations were made using the Maxwell–Garnett effective medium approximation (MG-EMA) for spherical nanoparticles (Figure S3, Supporting Information File Supporting Information File 1). They showed that, at the operating wavelength of the ellipsometer and at the doping levels

Tuning the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries by modifying the structural defects of the carbon felt electrode

• Ditty Dixon,
• Deepu Joseph Babu,
• Aiswarya Bhaskar,
• Hans-Michael Bruns,
• Joerg J. Schneider,
• Frieder Scheiba and
• Helmut Ehrenberg

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1698–1706, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.165

• )-based carbon felt was subjected to N2-plasma treatment to increase the heteroatom defects and reactive edge sites as a method to increase the performance in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). N-doping in the felt was mainly in the form of pyrrolic and pyridinic nitrogen. Even though the amount of

• and edge sites. Thus, from the present study, it can be concluded that an alternate way to increase the performance of the VRFBs is to introduce specific defects such as N-doping/substitution or to increase the edge sites. In other words, defects induced in the carbon felt such as heteroatom doping

• reaction site or catalytic center in graphite is by doping it with heteroatoms such as B, N, or P. The heteroatom perturbs the electronic structure of the graphite layer subjected to doping, leading to enhanced polarization [14]. N-doped carbon-based electrodes have been successfully tested in VRFBs. For