Electrospun one-dimensional nanostructures: a new horizon for gas sensing materials

• Muhammad Imran,
• Nunzio Motta and
• Mahnaz Shafiei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2128–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.202

• nanofibers are highly attractive as ultrasensitive sensors [42]. To date, many excellent review articles on the fabrication, alignment and application of electrospun nanofibers have been published [32][37][39][40]. However, to the best of our knowledge, a modern, comprehensive review on gas sensing

A scanning probe microscopy study of nanostructured TiO₂/poly(3-hexylthiophene) hybrid heterojunctions for photovoltaic applications

• Laurie Letertre,
• Roland Roche,
• Olivier Douhéret,
• Hailu G. Kassa,
• Denis Mariolle,
• Nicolas Chevalier,
• Łukasz Borowik,
• Philippe Dumas,
• Benjamin Grévin,
• Roberto Lazzaroni and
• Philippe Leclère

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2087–2096, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.197

• system (blue lines) in a KPFM measurement configuration, i.e., a grounded ITO electrode and the DC and AC bias applied to the tip. Considering no floating potential at the [ITO/TiO2/P3HT-COOH] surface (see Supporting Information File 1, Figure S1), a Fermi level alignment can be assumed across the entire

The role of the Ge mole fraction in improving the performance of a nanoscale junctionless tunneling FET: concept and scaling capability

• Hichem Ferhati,
• Fayçal Djeffal and
• Toufik Bentrcia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1856–1862, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.177

• barrier height at the source–channel junction decreases and a higher tunneling current can be generated when the band alignment at the junction is satisfied. In addition, Figure 4 shows the complex subthreshold behavior. The Ge mole fraction induces a highly non-linear behavior of the swing factor as it

SO₂ gas adsorption on carbon nanomaterials: a comparative study

• Deepu J. Babu,
• Divya Puthusseri,
• Frank G. Kühl,
• Sherif Okeil,
• Michael Bruns,
• Manfred Hampe and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1782–1792, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.169

• CNTs can be either randomly oriented or arranged parallel to each other resulting in a preferential alignment (Figure 1d). By the proper choice of synthesis parameters, the CNT growth orientation perpendicular to the substrate can be realized and such 3D CNT structures are referred to as vertically

• adsorption sites, in VACNTs the alignment ensures that the bundled morphology extends over macroscopic dimensions. Simulation studies of Yang et al. on double-walled aligned CNTs have shown that the outer adsorption sites (interstitial + groove + outside periphery) constitute a significant fraction (>50%) of

• the study: a) CNHs, b) MWNTs, c) high-magnification image of MWNTs revealing their unordered, felt-like structure, d) VACNTs revealing their alignment, e) unordered SWNTs, f) Norit R1 Extra. a) TEM image of VACNTs obtained after unhinging from the substrate and dispersed in ethanol by ultrasonication

Preparation of micro/nanopatterned gelatins crosslinked with genipin for biocompatible dental implants

• Reika Makita,
• Tsukasa Akasaka,
• Seiichi Tamagawa,
• Yasuhiro Yoshida,
• Saori Miyata,
• Hirofumi Miyaji and
• Tsutomu Sugaya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1735–1754, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.165

• either gelatin or collagen substrates. However, grooves with a width of 100 µm width did not influence osteoblast cell orientation [44]. Good cell alignment in collagen or gelatin grooves has also been reported for NIH-3T3 cells [36], vascular smooth muscle cells [46], and dental pulp stem cells [56]. In

• 200 or 560 nm, but were well-aligned in grooves with a depth of 2 µm. With respect to the grooves used in our study, it appeared that a gelatin groove depth of 500 nm was sufficient for alignment of Saos-2 cells. Therefore, grooves with widths of 500 nm to 2 µm and a 500-nm depth are suitable for the

• alignment of Saos-2 cells. Saos-2 cells cultured on certain gelatin pillars developed filopodia that elongated radially from the Saos-2 cell body. Cells on pillars with a diameter of 500 nm and height of 500 nm (Figure 5d) or 2 µm (Figure 5e) exhibited larger cell areas and numerous filopodia after 1 h of

Toward the use of CVD-grown MoS₂ nanosheets as field-emission source

• Geetanjali Deokar,
• Nitul S. Rajput,
• Junjie Li,
• Francis Leonard Deepak,
• Wei Ou-Yang,
• Nicolas Reckinger,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Jean-Francois Colomer and
• Mustapha Jouiad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1686–1694, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.160

• homogeneous distribution and vertical alignment compared to the previously reported MoS2 nanostructures (on which FE studies were performed), which were sparsely and randomly distributed [9]. The NSs reported by Kashid et al. have few protruding MoS2 NSs and mostly planar surfaces [12]. A typical Raman

Photoluminescence of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots in nematic liquid crystals in electric fields

• Margarita A. Kurochkina,
• Elena A. Konshina and
• Daria Khmelevskaia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1544–1549, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.145

• I/I0 (a) and decay times t/t0 (b) of the QD photoluminescence as functions of the electric field strength applied to LC cells with a planar (blue circles) and vertical (red circles) alignment. The insert shows the structure of a LC cell: 1 - quartz substrates, 2 - ITO electrode, 3 - orienting layer

Cr(VI) remediation from aqueous environment through modified-TiO₂-mediated photocatalytic reduction

• Rashmi Acharya,
• Brundabana Naik and
• Kulamani Parida

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1448–1470, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.137

• described by the Langmuir–Hinshelwood model [182]. The heterosystem CuCo2O4/TiO2 for the removal of Cr(VI) by photocatalytic reduction under visible light has been reported by Kebir et al. [183]. The synergetic effect of adsorption and photocatalytic reduction with proper band alignment are attributed to

Electrostatically actuated encased cantilevers

• Benoit X. E. Desbiolles,
• Gabriela Furlan,
• Adam M. Schwartzberg,
• Paul D. Ashby and
• Dominik Ziegler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1381–1389, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.130

• implementation remains difficult because alignment of an electrode is generally cumbersome and electrostatic forces frequently convoluted with the tip–sample interaction where changes in capacitance gradient due to topographical features influence cantilever excitation. An optically transparent electrode [20] or

• device itself. Built into the encasement and located between cantilever and sample, the actuation electrode does not need alignment and the device remains compatible with any scanning probe force microscope using optical beam deflection detection. Our method allows for static or dynamic actuation and is

• clean resonance peaks in air and in liquid. The built-in drive electrode does not require any alignment. With only little modification of the cantilever holder, the devices can be used in almost any instrument. We studied static, harmonic and sub-harmonic actuation modes. In the harmonic mode, the

Formation and development of nanometer-sized cybotactic clusters in bent-core nematic liquid crystalline compounds

• Yuri P. Panarin,
• Sithara P. Sreenilayam,
• Jagdish K. Vij,
• Anne Lehmann and
• Carsten Tschierske

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1288–1296, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.121

• the electro-convection phenomena is beyond the scope of present work, however we find that a DC bias field up to 40 V does not affect the homogeneously planar structure created by alignment. The dielectric loss spectra ε″ versus DC bias voltage were recorded for both BCN66 and BCN84 compounds at 1 °C

A simple extension of the commonly used fitting equation for oscillatory structural forces in case of silica nanoparticle suspensions

• Sebastian Schön and
• Regine von Klitzing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1095–1107, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.101

• into a preliminary set of combined force data. Combination here implies that each data point of each force curve is included into a single data set, resulting in a single force curve. No further individual alignment beyond the steps described above was performed. 5) Each single force curve was compared

Review on nanoparticles and nanostructured materials: history, sources, toxicity and regulations

• Jaison Jeevanandam,
• Ahmed Barhoum,
• Yen S. Chan,
• Alain Dufresne and
• Michael K. Danquah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1050–1074, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.98

• magnets, so-called ferrofluids, are ultrastable suspensions of small magnetic NPs with superparamagnetic properties [36]. Upon applying a magnetic field, the liquid will macroscopically magnetize, which leads to the alignment of NPs along the magnetic field direction [37]. Recent research has focused on

Cyclodextrin inhibits zinc corrosion by destabilizing point defect formation in the oxide layer

• Abdulrahman Altin,
• Maciej Krzywiecki,
• Adnan Sarfraz,
• Cigdem Toparli,
• Claudius Laska,
• Philipp Kerger,
• Aleksandar Zeradjanin,
• Karl J. J. Mayrhofer,
• Michael Rohwerder and
• Andreas Erbe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 936–944, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.86

• interface, closely resembling the energy level alignment in an n–p junction. The energy level shift is too large to permit further electron transfer through the layer, inhibiting corrosion. Adsorption hence changes the defect density in the protecting ZnO layer. This mechanism of corrosion inhibition shows

• because of β-CD adsorption is too high to enable easy electron transfer at active corrosion conditions. This work shows that the energy level alignment across the interface can be significantly affected by the presence of simple organic molecules. The defect chemistry of the oxide plays also an important

Optical orientation of nematic liquid crystal droplets via photoisomerization of an azodendrimer dopant

• Sergey A. Shvetsov,
• Alexander V. Emelyanenko,
• Natalia I. Boiko,
• Alexander S. Zolot'ko,
• Yan-Song Zhang,
• Jui-Hsiang Liu and
• Alexei R. Khokhlov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 870–879, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.81

• adsorbed dendrimer molecules are mostly oriented perpendicularly to the NLC–glycerol interface and align the NLC molecules in the same direction. The UV irradiation causes the trans→cis isomerization of the dopant, the cis isomers of the terminal moieties provide the planar alignment of NLC. In our

• in the droplets resting on the solid substrate [30]. The NLC director distribution with boojum defect on the top of the droplet (Figure 1a) can be reversibly changed to almost homeotropic NLC alignment (Figure 1b). The interest in these geometries of NLC droplets is explained by their better

• substrate Let us consider the orientational transitions of NLC droplets resting on the cell substrate. Before any LED irradiation, the NLC droplets exhibit homeotropic alignment on the substrate coated with an orienting compound and planar alignment on the glycerol interface. This leads to the director

Effect of ferroelectric BaTiO₃ particles on the threshold voltage of a smectic A liquid crystal

• Abbas R. Imamaliyev,
• Mahammadali A. Ramazanov and
• Shirkhan A. Humbatov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 824–828, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.76

• high, the final state is close to homeotropic. As mentioned above, the threshold voltage is determined from the capacitance–voltage measurements of the electro-optical cell initially having planar alignment. The threshold voltage corresponds to the voltage at which the capacitance of the cell or the

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

• CNT growth, while in the latter, the CNTs are initially grown in random orientation and the arrangement is then achieved during the device integration process. As the ex situ techniques are free from growth restrictions and more flexible in terms of controlling the alignment and sorting of the CNTs

• , they are considered by some as the preferred technique for engineering of oriented CNTs. This review focuses on recent progress in the improvement of the orientation and alignment of CNTs in composite materials. Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of the processes are discussed as well as their

• future outlook. Keywords: arrangement and alignment; carbon nanotubes; composite materials; orientation; Review Introduction Carbon is one of the most abundant elements comprising the world around us. Before 1985 graphite and diamond were the only known structural forms of carbon [1]. In 1991, Iijima

Dynamic behavior of nematic liquid crystal mixtures with quantum dots in electric fields

• Emil Petrescu,
• Cristina Cirtoaje and
• Octavian Danila

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 399–406, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.39

• dots. Basu and co-workers [7] proposed a different model of a quantum dot dispersion in a nematic liquid crystal. According to this model, dots are gathering together forming long chains around which liquid crystal molecules are homogeneously aligned. Such an alignment could not explain the decrease of

• the relaxation time when the field is switched on because the anchoring forces on quantum dots surface will slow down the molecular movement. A possible explanation for this behavior might be given considering a homeotropic alignment of the LC molecules on the QD surface [12]. Thus, if the applied

Temperature-tunable lasing from dye-doped chiral microdroplets encapsulated in a thin polymeric film

• Gia Petriashvili,
• Mauro Daniel Luigi Bruno,
• Maria Penelope De Santo and
• Riccardo Barberi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 379–383, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.37

• the coalescence of droplets and to induce the planar alignment of the liquid-crystal molecules at the interface. Inside the droplets, the cholesteric helices arrange in a radial configuration, with the cholesteric layers bent in concentric spherical surfaces. In order to study laser emission from

Design of polar self-assembling lactic acid derivatives possessing submicrometre helical pitch

• Alexej Bubnov,
• Cyril Vacek,
• Michał Czerwiński,
• Terezia Vojtylová,
• Wiktor Piecek and
• Věra Hamplová

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 333–341, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.33

• and the same length of non-chiral terminal chain. For all compounds the SmC* phase remains quite stable also at its supercooled state, i.e., below the melting point; the crystallisation does not occur even under an applied electric field. Moreover, the uniform alignment of the SmC* phase texture is

• applying an electric field, it is possible to reach uniform alignment which remains very stable with time. Their most exciting property, namely the helical pitch length of 120–320 nm, makes the materials from the KL n/m series potentially applicable for the design of advanced functional multicomponent

• filled into glass cells (Military University of Technology, cell gap of 12 μm, homogeneous alignment) with indium tin oxide transparent electrodes and polyimide layers rubbed unidirectional, which ensured a planar geometry supporting an induction of bookshelf-like smectic structures. The alignment was

Review: Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based nanoelectromechanical switches – materials solutions and operational conditions

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Jelena Kosmaca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Jana Andzane and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 271–300, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.29

• nanomanipulation approaches. The top-down approach involves lithography, etching and coating technologies to fabricate device structures from bulk materials or thin films [7][19][23][39][47][48][49][50]. The combined approach of fabricating NEM switches requires subsequent transfer and alignment of synthesized

Dynamic behavior of a nematic liquid crystal with added carbon nanotubes in an electric field

• Emil Petrescu and
• Cristina Cirtoaje

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 233–241, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.25

• Dierking and co-workers [13][14] proved an alignment of CNTs parallel to the liquid crystal molecules, so we may assume that the anchoring angle α is neglectable. Thus, Equation 11 becomes: When exposed to an external electric field higher than the critical Fréedericksz transition threshold the molecules

• the nanotubes surface and a homogeneous alignment of the cell was considered. Thus, in the absence of any external fields, the nematic director and carbon nanotubes axis are parallel to the x-axis. When the electric field is applied on a LC + SWCNT cell, the molecules change their orientation tending

• aligned along the x-axis. In this case the relaxation time will be smaller than that of a pure nematic because the interaction forces between nematic molecules and carbon nanotubes pull the molecules back to a planar alignment. The free energy density results from Equation 22 in which the applied voltage

Liquid-crystalline nanoarchitectures for tissue engineering

• Baeckkyoung Sung and
• Min-Ho Kim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 205–215, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.22

• less parallel to one another. The mean direction of this long-range orientational order is called the director. If the constituent rods have intrinsic chirality, the cholesteric phase (also termed as chiral nematic phase) is induced by continuously twisting the nematic alignment, which can be

• alignment of ECM fibers is known to control the cell shape and motion [53]. During development, growth, and proliferation, the 2D/3D topography of ECM affects the cell spreading, focal adhesion strength, and intercellular mechanical signaling [54]. For example, the guided migration of cells in the ECM was

• production of physiologically functional tissue replicas of nerves by controlling 3D cell alignment and growth direction. When cardiomyocytes are embedded in the anisotropic gel scaffolds, the guided cell growth parallel to the major axis of the bundle structure enables the long-range propagation of action

Dielectric properties of a bisimidazolium salt with dodecyl sulfate anion doped with carbon nanotubes

• Doina Manaila Maximean,
• Viorel Cîrcu and
• Constantin Paul Ganea

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 164–174, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.19

• imposed on the CNTs in such a way that the alignment axis of the CNTs is driven by the LC reorientation controlled by an electric field [37]. The concentration and the spatial distribution of charges in the LC matrix will be affected by the presence of CNTs and, hence, the conductivity will be changed [38

Electrical properties of a liquid crystal dispersed in an electrospun cellulose acetate network

• Doina Manaila Maximean,
• Octavian Danila,
• Pedro L. Almeida and
• Constantin Paul Ganea

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 155–163, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.18

• there is no uniform direction of alignment of the LC director between different droplets, the optical path of the incident light travelling through a PDLC is different from point to point, due to the mismatch between the effective refractive index of the LC and the refractive index of the polymer. The

Combined scanning probe electronic and thermal characterization of an indium arsenide nanowire

• Tino Wagner,
• Fabian Menges,
• Heike Riel,
• Bernd Gotsmann and
• Andreas Stemmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 129–136, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.15

• = 2 mΩ·cm) silicon wafers coated with a 100 nm thick thermal oxide. Electrical contact pads and alignment marks for e-beam alignment and localization of the NWs where defined and fabricated using an ultraviolet lithography process. The InAs NWs were transferred from a growth substrate onto the pre