Oxidation of Au/Ag films by oxygen plasma: phase separation and generation of nanoporosity

• Abdel-Aziz El Mel,
• Said A. Mansour,
• Mujaheed Pasha,
• Atef Zekri,
• Janarthanan Ponraj,
• Akshath Shetty and
• Yousef Haik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1608–1614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.143

• Lewis et al. [20]. However, instead of using nanostructures as before, we used Au/Ag alloy thin films deposited by co-sputtering as the model system to study the oxidation process triggered by radio-frequency oxygen plasma (Figure 1). The oxidation and phase separation processes resulted in the

• a high specific surface area. Experimental The Au/Ag films were deposited by magnetron co-sputtering of gold and silver targets (99.99% in purity). The electrical power applied to the gold and silver targets was fixed to 25 and 100 W, respectively. This yielded Au/Ag films with 75 atom % and 25 atom

• speed and no intentional heating was applied to the substrate during the procedure. To ensure a proper adhesion of the Au/Ag alloy films, prior to each deposition a ≈100 nm thick chromium layer was deposited by sputtering of a chromium target (99.99% in purity), under pure argon atmosphere at 10 mT, for

Walking energy harvesting and self-powered tracking system based on triboelectric nanogenerators

• Mingliang Yao,
• Guangzhong Xie,
• Qichen Gong and
• Yuanjie Su

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1590–1595, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.141

• and deionized water were used to clean 50 μm thick PTFE films, which were then dried with nitrogen. During the etching process, DC sputtering was used on the surface of the PTFE film as a mask to deposit Au particles for 45 s. Next, a gas mixture containing O2, CF4, and Ar was introduced to the

• . Fabrication of the u-TENG The u-TENG fabrication procedure was adapted, with modifications, from [34]. The back electrode was formed by depositing a Cu layer on the unmodified surface of a PTFE film via magnetron sputtering. A poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-coated PTFE film was mounted onto a poly(ethylene

Adsorption and self-assembly of porphyrins on ultrathin CoO films on Ir(100)

• Feifei Xiang,
• Tobias Schmitt,
• Marco Raschmann and
• M. Alexander Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1516–1524, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.134

• molecules were carefully outgassed for 2 to 5 h prior to deposition at ±10 K of the evaporation temperature. CoO was prepared on an Ir(100) single crystal surface cleaned by ion sputtering and annealing. The Ir(100)-(1 × 1) surface was prepared according to [31]. We employ thin films of two distinct

Helium ion microscope – secondary ion mass spectrometry for geological materials

• Matthew R. Ball,
• Richard J. M. Taylor,
• Joshua F. Einsle,
• Fouzia Khanom,
• Christelle Guillermier and
• Richard J. Harrison

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1504–1515, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.133

• ions of species x to the number of sputtered atoms of x, in a matrix-matched reference sample. The concentration of x, Cx, can then be calculated using Equation 1, and depends on the secondary ion current, Ix, the calculated useful yield UYx, the primary ion beam current, Ip and the sputtering yield, Y

• , which is typically measured after the analysis: The sputtering yield depends on the nature of the atoms as well as the matrix in which they are bound. This yield can be predicted semi-empirically for a primary Ne beam [17]. Figure 3 shows how the calculated yield of different atoms varies for a silicate

• . The calculated sputtering yield as a function of the atomic number for a 10 kV primary Ne beam impacting a silicate glass matrix for a low-density glass (2.2 g·cm−3, blue) and a high-density glass (3.3 g·cm−3, red), calculation after [17]. Reflected-light micrograph of the analysed Spodumene grain

Controlling the electronic and physical coupling on dielectric thin films

• Philipp Hurdax,
• Michael Hollerer,
• Larissa Egger,
• Georg Koller,
• Xiaosheng Yang,
• Anja Haags,
• Serguei Soubatch,
• Frank Stefan Tautz,
• Mathias Richter,
• Alexander Gottwald,
• Peter Puschnig,
• Martin Sterrer and
• Michael G. Ramsey

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1492–1503, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.132

• (100) crystal was cleaned by cycles of Ar+ sputtering and annealing at 500 °C. MgO(100) films were grown by Mg evaporation in an oxygen environment. The Mg fluxes used were on the order of 1 Å/min as monitored by a quartz microbalance. The MgO deposition was done at a temperature of 270 °C and at an O2

Self-assembly and spectroscopic fingerprints of photoactive pyrenyl tectons on hBN/Cu(111)

• Domenik M. Zimmermann,
• Knud Seufert,
• Luka Ðorđević,
• Tobias Hoh,
• Sushobhan Joshi,
• Tomas Marangoni,
• Davide Bonifazi and
• Willi Auwärter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1470–1483, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.130

• was cleaned by repeated Ar+ sputtering cycles at an energy of 800–1000 eV, followed by annealing at 1070 K. Monolayer hBN was grown via chemical vapor deposition using borazine ((HBNH)3, Katchem spol s.r.o, www.katchem.cz), following a protocol described previously [25]. Subsequently, a submonolayer

Antimicrobial metal-based nanoparticles: a review on their synthesis, types and antimicrobial action

• Matías Guerrero Correa,
• Fernanda B. Martínez,
• Cristian Patiño Vidal,
• Camilo Streitt,
• Juan Escrig and
• Carol Lopez de Dicastillo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1450–1469, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.129

• subsections. Physical methods Examples of physical methods used to synthesize NPs are the evaporation/condensation method, magnetron sputtering, mechanochemical processing (MCP), microwave-thermal method, photoreduction process, and pulsed laser ablation, among others. The evaporation/condensation method

• setup [23]. Magnetron sputtering is a high-rate vacuum-coating technique generally used to synthesize films, multilayer or hybrid systems based on substrate coating. For example, Piedade et al. obtained ZnO, ZnO–C and ZnO–Cu films with thickness values ranging from 385 to 1635 nm. In addition, Galstyan

Wafer-level integration of self-aligned high aspect ratio silicon 3D structures using the MACE method with Au, Pd, Pt, Cu, and Ir

• Mathias Franz,
• Romy Junghans,
• Paul Schmitt,
• Adriana Szeghalmi and
• Stefan E. Schulz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1439–1449, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.128

• nanometre scale. The target film thickness was 5 nm and was adjusted using the sputtering rate. Figure 1 shows SEM images after the annealing process (Figure 1a–d) and the results of the particle distribution analysis (Figure 1f–j). Figure 1e shows the surface of the Ir sample directly after the ALD process

• PVD methods. The deposition of gold and palladium was done by magnetron sputtering. The film thickness has been adjusted by the use of a calibrated deposition rate. Ion beam sputter deposition (IBSD) has been used to deposit platinum and copper. For copper deposition, the thickness has been controlled

Impact of fluorination on interface energetics and growth of pentacene on Ag(111)

• Qi Wang,
• Meng-Ting Chen,
• Antoni Franco-Cañellas,
• Bin Shen,
• Thomas Geiger,
• Holger F. Bettinger,
• Frank Schreiber,
• Ingo Salzmann,
• Alexander Gerlach and
• Steffen Duhm

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1361–1370, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.120

• [60] and vacuum-sublimed on clean metal surfaces (prepared by repeated Ar+ ion sputtering and annealing cycles [up to 550 °C]), with deposition rates of about 0.5 Å/min. The film mass thickness was monitored with a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) near the sample, and a nominal thickness of 4 Å is

Controlling the proximity effect in a Co/Nb multilayer: the properties of electronic transport

• Sergey Bakurskiy,
• Mikhail Kupriyanov,
• Nikolay V. Klenov,
• Igor Soloviev,
• Andrey Schegolev,
• Roman Morari,
• Yury Khaydukov and
• Anatoli S. Sidorenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1336–1345, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.118

• prepared by using the magnetron sputtering system Leybold Heraeus Z-400 during a single deposition cycle without depressurization of the chamber. Only three targets were used for the structure preparation: niobium (99.95% purity) was used as a superconducting Cooper pair generator and interlayer separator

Effect of localized helium ion irradiation on the performance of synthetic monolayer MoS₂ field-effect transistors

• Jakub Jadwiszczak,
• Pierce Maguire,
• Conor P. Cullen,
• Georg S. Duesberg and
• Hongzhou Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1329–1335, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.117

• achieved by selective ion sputtering in thin film transistors has also been observed in He+-irradiated InGaZnO devices [27]. This irradiation-induced carrier activation depends not only on the fluence of the ion beam, but also on the absolute number of defects that can be introduced. Therefore, the

• atomic vacancy yield per each delivered ion as a function of target penetration depth on the 35 nm-Au/5 nm-Ti/0.7 nm-MoS2/285 nm-SiO2 stack [41]. As evident from Figure 3d, the sulfur sputtering yield at the Ti–MoS2 interface is very close to that of unencapsulated MoS2 [15], indicating notable damage to

Structural and electronic properties of SnO₂ doped with non-metal elements

• Jianyuan Yu,
• Yingeng Wang,
• Yan Huang,
• Xiuwen Wang,
• Jing Guo,
• Jingkai Yang and
• Hongli Zhao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1321–1328, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.116

• . Nguyen successfully prepared p-type N-doped SnO2 films using magnetron sputtering [9]. The results show that the SnO2 films were n-type semiconductors, and the concentration of free carriers in the film increased as the temperature for sedimentation increased. Also, p-type semiconductors were

An atomic force microscope integrated with a helium ion microscope for correlative nanoscale characterization

• Santiago H. Andany,
• Gregor Hlawacek,
• Stefan Hummel,
• Charlène Brillard,
• Mustafa Kangül and
• Georg E. Fantner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1272–1279, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.111

• used, in situ, in between exposures to assess the shrinkage, stiffness change or sputtering of the resist. More applications such as conductive AFM, piezo-force microscopy or magnetic force microscopy are within reach of the presented technology and would make AFM–HIM appealing to the microelectronics

Ultrasensitive detection of cadmium ions using a microcantilever-based piezoresistive sensor for groundwater

• Dinesh Rotake,
• Anand Darji and
• Nitin Kale

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1242–1253, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.108

• . [28], but it is not suitable for other high-temperature sputtering processes. Microcantilevers based on SiO2 have been manufactured by Tang et al. [29] to enhance the sensitivity of cantilever sensors. Many authors use optical setups for microcantilevers. However, an optical output has several

Hybridization vs decoupling: influence of an h-BN interlayer on the physical properties of a lander-type molecule on Ni(111)

• Maximilian Schaal,
• Takumi Aihara,
• Marco Gruenewald,
• Felix Otto,
• Jari Domke,
• Roman Forker,
• Hiroyuki Yoshida and
• Torsten Fritz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1168–1177, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.101

• Ar+ sputtering at room temperature and annealing at 800 °C. The h-BN layer was grown by thermal dehydrogenation of borazine molecules at a substrate temperature of 800 °C similar to [19]. We purchased borazine from Katchem Ltd. (Czech Republic) with a specified purity of >98%. The quality of the h-BN

Gram-scale synthesis of splat-shaped Ag–TiO₂ nanocomposites for enhanced antimicrobial properties

• Mohammad Jaber,
• Asim Mushtaq,
• Kebiao Zhang,
• Jindan Wu,
• Dandan Luo,
• Zihan Yi,
• M. Zubair Iqbal and
• Xiangdong Kong

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1119–1125, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.96

• , magnetron sputtering, molecular precursor techniques and photo-deposition techniques have been applied to the preparation of nanocomposites [6][21][22]. However, these techniques are very sophisticated and not optimized for synthesis on a large scale. Herein, a simple hydrothermal process was employed to

Monolayers of MoS₂ on Ag(111) as decoupling layers for organic molecules: resolution of electronic and vibronic states of TCNQ

• Asieh Yousofnejad,
• Gaël Reecht,
• Nils Krane,
• Christian Lotze and
• Katharina J. Franke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1062–1071, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.91

• vibronic states of the gas-phase molecule. Results and Discussion We have grown monolayer islands of MoS2 on an atomically clean Ag(111) surface, which had been exposed to sputtering–annealing cycles under ultrahigh vacuum before. The growth procedure was adapted from that of MoS2 on Au(111) [34][35], with

Excitonic and electronic transitions in Me–Sb₂Se₃ structures

• Nicolae N. Syrbu,
• Victor V. Zalamai,
• Ivan G. Stamov and
• Stepan I. Beril

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1045–1053, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.89

• (In–Sb2Se3) contacts, the structures were obtained by either thermal sputtering under vacuum or electrochemical deposition onto the cleaved faces of single crystals (Figure 3A). Current–voltage characteristics suggest that the contacts have an ohmic behavior. The impedance has a frequency dependence

• structures and the excitonic band symmetries in the Brillouin zone center for crystals with an orthorhombic symmetry (Pnma). The In–Sb2Se3 structures were generated either by thermal sputtering under vacuum or by electrochemical deposition. The photoconductivity spectra at different applied voltages were

Gas-sensing features of nanostructured tellurium thin films

• Dumitru Tsiulyanu

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

• , nanotubes or nanowires from the gas phase under vacuum or argon atmosphere. On the other hand, nanostructuring can be performed mechanically as indicated by the possibility of growth of nanocrystalline gas sensors via rf sputtering (13.6 MHz) of Te in an ultra-high-purity argon atmosphere [24]. The main

• grown using either the thermal vacuum evaporation of pure Te [17][18][19][20] or its sputtering under a pure argon atmosphere [24] onto glass, Al2O3 or sapphire substrates. It was shown that the film morphology as well as the gas sensitivity is controlled by several factors, such as the nature and

Band tail state related photoluminescence and photoresponse of ZnMgO solid solution nanostructured films

• Vadim Morari,
• Aida Pantazi,
• Nicolai Curmei,
• Vitalie Postolache,
• Emil V. Rusu,
• Marius Enachescu,
• Ion M. Tiginyanu and
• Veaceslav V. Ursaki

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 899–910, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.75

• radio-frequency plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (RF-MBE) [2][7][10][11], DC [12][13] and RF [1][3][6] magnetron sputtering, pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [14][15], plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) [16], chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [17], metal–organic chemical vapor deposition

• –0.78 for Zn1−xMgxO thin films grown by reactive DC magnetron co-sputtering [12]. It was shown that this investigation technique is highly sensitive for the detection of embedded structural inhomogeneities, and it was found that the phase segregation occurs in the range of x = 0.35–0.65 with coexistence

Epitaxial growth and superconducting properties of thin-film PdFe/VN and VN/PdFe bilayers on MgO(001) substrates

• Wael M. Mohammed,
• Igor V. Yanilkin,
• Amir I. Gumarov,
• Airat G. Kiiamov,
• Roman V. Yusupov and
• Lenar R. Tagirov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 807–813, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.65

• ) and Fe (99.97% purity, ChemPur GmbH, Germany) were co-evaporated from the pre-calibrated high-temperature effusion cells to obtain the desired Pd1−xFex composition. Vanadium nitride layers were synthesized by using reactive DC magnetron sputtering (MS) in the UHV chamber with a base pressure of p ≤ 5

• −xFex were taken at each deposition step using low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Finally, all structures were capped with 10 nm layer of undoped Si by magnetron sputtering to prevent sample deterioration. Thus, a VN film and stacks of Pd0.96Fe0.04/VN and

• sputtering. The obtained 30 nm thick VN films exhibit a sharp superconducting transition with Tc = 7.7 K and ΔTc = 25 mK. The heteroepitaxial Pd0.96Fe0.04/VN and VN/Pd0.92Fe0.08 structures reveal a superconductor–ferromagnet proximity suppression of the transition temperature to Tc = 6.1 K. This is, however

A set of empirical equations describing the observed colours of metal–anodic aluminium oxide–Al nanostructures

• Cristina V. Manzano,
• Jakob J. Schwiedrzik,
• Gerhard Bürki,
• Laszlo Pethö,
• Johann Michler and
• Laetitia Philippe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 798–806, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.64

• .11.64 Abstract Structural colours have received a lot of attention regarding the reproduction of the vivid colours found in nature. In this study, metal–anodic aluminium oxide (AAO)–Al nanostructures were deposited using a two-step anodization and sputtering process to produce self-ordered anodic

• circle. Conclusion 8 nm Cr–AAO–Al and 10/17.5/25 nm Au–AAO–Al nanostructures were fabricated by combining sputtering deposition and a two-step anodization process. The AAO films with different thicknesses (from 209 ± 12 nm to 380 ± 15 nm) were anodized and the CIE Yxy values were obtained via reflectance

• Alliance-Concept DP 650 DC magnetron sputtering equipment. 25, 17.5 and 10 nm thin films of gold were deposited on top of the AAO films using a Leica EM ACE600 sputtering equipment. The Au layers were deposited using a sputtering pressure and intensity of 5 × 10−2 mbar and 30 mA, respectively, and the Cr

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

• photolithography and the template method by Sung et al. [30]. In this case, Ag particles were loaded on the outside of the nanocolumns by magnetron sputtering, and the catalysis was carried out at a sputtering time of 30 min. Besides, Jani et al. [31] studied the preparation of TiO2 nanotube arrays by anodization

Structural optical and electrical properties of a transparent conductive ITO/Al–Ag/ITO multilayer contact

• Aliyu Kabiru Isiyaku,
• Ahmad Hadi Ali and
• Nafarizal Nayan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 695–702, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.57

• pure ITO layer (as reference) were prepared by RF and DC sputtering. The microstructural, optical and electrical properties of the ITO/Al–Ag/ITO (IAAI) films were investigated before and after annealing at 400 °C. X-ray diffraction measurements show that the insertion of the Al–Ag intermediate bilayer

• × 10−3 Ω−1). These highly conductive and transparent ITO films with Al–Ag interlayer can be a promising contact for low-resistance optoelectronics devices. Keywords: annealing; DC sputtering; figure of merit; indium tin oxide (ITO); multilayer structure; RF sputtering; Introduction Transparent

• overcome by adding a thin layer of Al, Au, Pd, or Cr to the Ag film to improve the adhesion [4][25][26]. Optical and electrical properties of ITO films are enhanced by post-deposition annealing especially at high temperatures [7]. Gulen et al. [27] exposed pure ITO films deposited by sputtering to heat

Evolution of Ag nanostructures created from thin films: UV–vis absorption and its theoretical predictions

• Robert Kozioł,
• Marcin Łapiński,
• Paweł Syty,
• Damian Koszelow,
• Wojciech Sadowski,
• Józef E. Sienkiewicz and
• Barbara Kościelska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 494–507, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.40

• thickness) were deposited using a table-top dc magnetron sputtering coater (EM SCD 500, Leica) in pure Ar plasma (argon, Air Products 99.999%). The Ag target was of 99.99% purity, the rate of layer deposition was about 0.4 nm·s−1, and the incident power was in the range of 30–40 W. The layer thickness was