Experimental and simulation-based investigation of He, Ne and Ar irradiation of polymers for ion microscopy

• Lukasz Rzeznik,
• Yves Fleming,
• Tom Wirtz and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1113–1128, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.104

• studies on monatomic bombardment on polymers report on 5 keV and 500 eV Ar atom bombardment of polystyrene oligomers [21] and polystyrene molecules containing 61 repeat units [22] adsorbed on Ag(111), respectively. In the first study, the excited volume in the substrate induces collective motion which

• composition can be found. Methods Experimental setup For this study, different polymer samples were spin-coated on silicon (111). The homopolymers of polystyrene (PS) with molecular mass Mw = 1 900 (Mw/Mn = 1.10) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) with molecular mass Mn = 22 200 (Mw/Mn = 1.07) were obtained

• evolution of the He, Ne and Ar positions in the system at atomic level. Four different polymers have been selected: polyethylene (PE), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), atactic polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Different polymer samples have been created, each sample containing 10

Multiwalled carbon nanotube hybrids as MRI contrast agents

• Nikodem Kuźnik and
• Mateusz M. Tomczyk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1086–1103, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.102

• conditions [34]. The so-obtained hybrids were further wrapped with anionic polyelectrolyte polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) and then with cationic polyethylenimine (PEI). A modification of this hybrid, PEI/PSS/SPIO/oMWCNT#Yin, was additionally synthesized by covalent carboxylic-amine crosslinking with folic acid

Generalized Hertz model for bimodal nanomechanical mapping

• Aleksander Labuda,
• Marta Kocuń,
• Waiman Meinhold,
• Deron Walters and
• Roger Proksch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 970–982, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.89

• experimental data and extract a shape and size of the tip interacting with a polystyrene surface. Keywords: bimodal atomic force microscopy; bimodal spectroscopy; contact mechanics; multifrequency; nanomechanical mapping; nanomechanics; Introduction Over the decades since its invention [1] the atomic force

• amplitude modulation (AM) [1][18][19], phase modulation (PM) [43][44][45][46] and frequency modulation (FM) [23][36][47]. Finally, a method for extracting the tip size and tip shape from bimodal AFM approach curves is presented and demonstrated on a polystyrene sample. Figure 1 provides a diagram of the

• measurements [39][55]. Here, the AM-AM, AM-PM and AM-FM configurations are explored in detail. Practical considerations for these choices will be discussed later. Results A polystyrene surface was probed with bimodal approach curves (also known as “force–distance” curves), where the bimodally oscillating

Large-scale fabrication of achiral plasmonic metamaterials with giant chiroptical response

• Morten Slyngborg,
• Yao-Chung Tsao and
• Peter Fojan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 914–925, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.83

• been investigated. These have been thoroughly studied [17][18][19][20] and other structures including theoretical suggestions are limited to plasma sphere arrays [21], gold dot arrays [22], gold square arrays [23], metal disk arrays [24], two layer hole arrays [25], polystyrene sphere templates for

• [31], preassembled nanoparticles [32][33][34] and a variety of colloidal nanolithography techniques [35][36][37]. Compared to the above mentioned PCMs, the experimentally proven ECMs only comprise structures from polystyrene sphere templates for gold deposition [26], structures formed by carbon

Magnetic switching of nanoscale antidot lattices

• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Joachim Gräfe,
• Kristof M. Lebecki,
• Maxim Skripnik,
• Felix Haering,
• Gisela Schütz,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Eberhard Goering and
• Ulrich Nowak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 733–750, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.65

• , nanosphere lithography offers the preparation of a self-assembled monolayer on the time scale of minutes even on a centimetre length scale. In this work, polystyrene(PS)-based nanosphere lithography was chosen, since monodisperse PS nanosphere suspensions are nowadays commercially available with a wide range

Tight junction between endothelial cells: the interaction between nanoparticles and blood vessels

• Yue Zhang and
• Wan-Xi Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 675–684, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.60

• exposure to NPs (polystyrene nanoparticles, quantum dots, single-wall carbon nanotubes) results in the disruption of the alveolar epithelial barrier, the extent of which also depends on the composition, shape and surface charge of the NPs [31]. Carbon nanotubes also show their capacity to penetrate the

Correlative infrared nanospectroscopic and nanomechanical imaging of block copolymer microdomains

• Benjamin Pollard and
• Markus B. Raschke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 605–612, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.53

• properties between and within polymer microdomains. Methods We study a high molecular weight block copolymer of polystyrene-block-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA), with a relative chain length of 270.0-b-289.0 Mn × 103 (P4443-SMMA, Polymer Source), spin-coated from a 1% w/v solution in toluene onto

Characterization of spherical domains at the polystyrene thin film–water interface

• Khurshid Ahmad,
• Xuezeng Zhao,
• Yunlu Pan and
• Danish Hussain

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 581–590, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.51

• , University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems and School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, P.R. China 10.3762/bjnano.7.51 Abstract Spherical domains that readily form at the polystyrene (PS)–water interface

• have been used to produce such films. Polystyrene (PS) is one of the most widely used materials for the preparation of thin films. Thin PS films have been prepared by spin coating [11][12][13][14][15]. So far, these films have been used in different studies related to surface and interface science, for

• , China), polystyrene beads (average MW ≈350,000; Aldrich, USA), AFM cantilevers (RTESPA, DNP, SNL; Bruker, USA), AFM (Innova; Bruker, USA), digital microscope (KH1300; Hirox, Japan), spin coater (KW-4A; SETCAS Electronics Co. Ltd., Beijing, China), and drop meter (MAIST, Vision, China). Sample

Active multi-point microrheology of cytoskeletal networks

• Tobias Paust,
• Tobias Neckernuss,
• Lina Katinka Mertens,
• Ines Martin,
• Michael Beil,
• Paul Walther,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Othmar Marti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 484–491, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.42

• viscoelastic media. Experimental Human keratins 8 and 18 were isolated and purified according to [28][29]. They were assembled into networks in 10 mM Tris-HCl buffer with a protein concentration of 0.5 g/L. Polystyrene beads with 1 µm diameter were incorporated in the network as measuring probes for

High-bandwidth multimode self-sensing in bimodal atomic force microscopy

• Michael G. Ruppert and
• S. O. Reza Moheimani

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 284–295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.26

• calibration grating available from NT-MDT with periodic rectangular features of heights h = 21.6 ± 1.5 nm and a blend of polystyrene (PS) and polyolefin elastomer (ethylene-octene copolymer) (LDPE) available from Bruker (PS-LDPE-12M). The PS regions of the sample have elastic modulus numbers around 2 GPa

Characterisation of thin films of graphene–surfactant composites produced through a novel semi-automated method

• Nik J. Walch,
• Alexei Nabok,
• Frank Davis and
• Séamus P. J. Higson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 209–219, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.19

• ]. Multi layered films of graphene were deposited onto gold-coated glass microscope slides by alternating layers of graphene–surfactant with oppositely charged polyelectrolytes, e.g., graphene(+)CTAB layers alternated with polyanionic layers of sodium polystyrene sulfonate (PSS), while graphene(−)SDS was

Single-molecule mechanics of protein-labelled DNA handles

• Vivek S. Jadhav,
• Dorothea Brüggemann,
• Florian Wruck and
• Martin Hegner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 138–148, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.16

• ) were conjugated with streptavidin or neutravidin proteins. The DIG-modified ends of these hybrids were bound to surface-modified polystyrene (anti-DIG) beads. Using different physiological buffers, optical force measurements showed consistent mechanical characteristics with long dissociation times

• ) in high-resolution measurements [10]. We previously presented optical force rupture measurements of the nascent polypeptide chain from biotinylated ribosomes, which were specifically bound to surface-modified polystyrene beads [11]. While the ribosome was translating, the biotinylated lysine residue

• and coupling to polystyrene beads PCR amplification of plasmid pTYB1 (7477 bp, New England Biolabs, Ireland (NEB)) with 5’-biotin (5’-AAT TCT TGA AGA CGA AAG GGC GGC-3’ for 4056 bp DNA and 5’-GGA TAC GAC GAT ACC GAA GAC AGC-3’ for 3034 bp DNA) and 5’-thiol or 5’-DIG end-modified primers (both have the

Chemical bath deposition of textured and compact zinc oxide thin films on vinyl-terminated polystyrene brushes

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Caroline G. Hofmeister,
• Peter Lindemann,
• Cheng Huang,
• Johannes Baier,
• Andreas Leineweber,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Christof Wöll,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 102–110, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.12

• polystyrene brush on the deposition of ZnO thin films under moderate conditions. On a non-modified SiOx surface, island growth is observed, whereas the polymer brush induces homogeneous film growth. A chemical modification of the polystyrene brushes during the mineralization process occurs, which enables

• measurements as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Infrared spectroscopy (IR) measurements were used to investigate the polystyrene brushes before and after modification. Keywords: bioinspired synthesis; polymer brush; template activation

• [36] as organic templates are known, which can modify the surface charge on the substrates for ZnO precipitation under moderate conditions. Based on these studies, we investigated the ZnO film formation on silicon wafers modified with vinyl-terminated polystyrene (PS) brushes. Those brushes consist of

Ultrastructural changes in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus induced by positively charged silver nanoparticles

• Dulce G. Romero-Urbina,
• Humberto H. Lara,
• J. Jesús Velázquez-Salazar,
• M. Josefina Arellano-Jiménez,
• Eduardo Larios,
• Anand Srinivasan,
• Jose L. Lopez-Ribot and
• Miguel José Yacamán

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2396–2405, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.246

• diluted in Mueller–Hinton broth (Difco, Detroit, Mich.) and plated in flat-bottom polystyrene 96-well tissue culture plates at a final density of 5.0 × 105 CFU/well. Two-fold serial dilutions of AgNPs were prepared at a final volume of 100 µL per well. The final concentration of the AgNPs ranged from 0.4

Nanoscale rippling on polymer surfaces induced by AFM manipulation

• Mario D’Acunto,
• Franco Dinelli and
• Pasqualantonio Pingue

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2278–2289, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.234

• wide spectrum of polymers has been investigated including polystyrene (PS) [13][20], poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [25], poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) [23], poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) [26] and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) [23]. Recently, we have reviewed wear occurring on polymeric surfaces and

• rippling for the thin lamellar microphases forming in polystyrene/poly(ethylene oxide) block copolymer (PS-b-PEO) films [48]. In particular via an analysis of the ripple patterns, they have deduced local thermochemical parameters such as the melting temperature of PEO, the Tg of PS, the specific heat of PS

• one to several hundreds of nanometers can be reproduced on the surface of polycarbonate (PC), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and polystyrene (PS) films. Authors have clearly shown that the ripple formation varies with T and polymer type (Figure 8a). The dependence on T has been characterized and

Selective porous gates made from colloidal silica nanoparticles

• Roberto Nisticò,
• Paola Avetta,
• Paola Calza,
• Debora Fabbri,
• Giuliana Magnacca and
• Dominique Scalarone

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2105–2112, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.215

• were prepared by spin-coating deposition of colloidal silica nanoparticles on an appropriate macroporous substrate. Silica nanoparticles very homogenous in size were obtained by sol–gel reaction of a metal oxide silica precursor, tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), and using polystyrene-block-poly

Temperature-dependent breakdown of hydrogen peroxide-treated ZnO and TiO₂ nanoparticle agglomerates

• Sinan Sabuncu and
• Mustafa Çulha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1897–1903, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.193

• common ways of increasing the NP dispersion in aqueous media. Polymers such as polystyrene, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and poly(acrylic acid) are also widely used to obtain dispersed NPs in aqueous environments [7][8][9]. Although the use of surfactants can provide better dispersion, they

Template-controlled mineralization: Determining film granularity and structure by surface functionality patterns

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Jonathan Berson,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Petia Atanasova,
• Johannes Baier,
• Joachim Bill and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1763–1768, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.180

• a templating substrate – properties which, in turn, are key properties for nanodevices. Experimental Template preparation by polymer-blend lithography Polymer solution: Polystyrene (PS, Mw = 96 kg/mol, PDI 1.04) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA, Mw = 9.59 kg/mol, PDI 1.05) were purchased from

Polymer blend lithography for metal films: large-area patterning with over 1 billion holes/inch²

• Cheng Huang,
• Alexander Förste,
• Stefan Walheim and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1205–1211, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.123

• polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), dissolved in methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) is used. This system forms a purely lateral structure on the substrate at controlled humidity, which means that PS droplets are formed in a PMMA matrix, whereby both phases have direct contact both to the substrate

• plasmonic resonance; metal islands; metal nanostructures; metal polymer blend lithography (metal PBL); nano-patterned template; nanoscale discs; optical transmission; perforated metal film; polymer phase separation; poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA); polystyrene (PS); self-assembly; spin-coating; surface

• polystyrene (PS)/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) blend film from a blend solution ends with a purely lateral phase separation between the two immiscible polymers under controlled spin-coating parameters (see Figure 1a). As reported in our earlier publication, the ambient atmosphere (humidity), the molar mass

High sensitivity and high resolution element 3D analysis by a combined SIMS–SPM instrument

• Yves Fleming and
• Tom Wirtz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1091–1099, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.110

• spectrometry (SIMS) data was combined with topographical data from the scanning probe microscopy (SPM) module for five test structures in order to obtain accurate chemical 3D maps: a polystyrene/polyvinylpyrrolidone (PS/PVP) polymer blend, a nickel-based super-alloy, a titanium carbonitride-based cermet, a

• is widely used in the SIMS field. The 3D SIMS-AFM surface reconstructions are visualised using the SPIP™ software by Image Metrology [15], the ParaView software tool [16] as well as the MayaVI 2 software tool [17]. Results and Discussion PS/PVP polymer blend An annealed polystyrene (PS

Optimization of phase contrast in bimodal amplitude modulation AFM

• Mehrnoosh Damircheli,
• Amir F. Payam and
• Ricardo Garcia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1072–1081, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.108

• –surface force is modelled by Equation 6 where a0 is a molecular distance (0.165 nm). Material and cantilever–tip parameters To study the phase contrast we have simulated the bimodal AM operation for two materials gold (Au) and polystyrene (PS). The values of the material properties needed to describe the

Automatic morphological characterization of nanobubbles with a novel image segmentation method and its application in the study of nanobubble coalescence

• Yuliang Wang,
• Huimin Wang,
• Shusheng Bi and
• Bin Guo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 952–963, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.98

• hydrophobic/superhydrophobic surfaces [22][23][24][25][26][27]. The interaction between NBs and sample surfaces supporting them was also recently investigated. A phenomenon of NB-induced nanoindentions was reported by Wang et al. on an ultrathin polystyrene (PS) film in water [8], and was further confirmed by

Protein corona – from molecular adsorption to physiological complexity

• Lennart Treuel,
• Dominic Docter,
• Michael Maskos and
• Roland H. Stauber

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 857–873, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.88

• understand the interactions between NPs and biological systems. Briefly, they used their LC-MS based method to measure time-resolved corona compositions on silica and polystyrene NPs in human serum. By using NPs of various sizes (diameters of about 35, 120, 140 nm), and surface functionalities (amine

• ): pPsNPs (polystyrene NP) and (b): nPsNPs (polystyrene NP) (c): NP coronae were classified into four groups by correlation analysis and relative values were normalized to the maximum amount across all time points for each protein. Protein groups PG I and PG II showed increasing or decreasing binding over

Mapping of elasticity and damping in an α + β titanium alloy through atomic force acoustic microscopy

• M. Kalyan Phani,
• Anish Kumar,
• T. Jayakumar,
• Walter Arnold and
• Konrad Samwer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 767–776, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.79

• films [8], NiMnGa films [9], Arabidopsis plant [10], polystyrene–propylene blends [11], nickel base alloys [12][13], ferritic steels [13], and metallic glasses [14]. Besides contact-resonance based methods, multi-frequency AFM techniques have also been used for measurement of elastic and damping

Simple approach for the fabrication of PEDOT-coated Si nanowires

• Mingxuan Zhu,
• Marielle Eyraud,
• Judikael Le Rouzo,
• Nadia Ait Ahmed,
• Florence Boulc’h,
• Claude Alfonso,
• Philippe Knauth and
• François Flory

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 640–650, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.65

• poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT/PSS) (a successful, commercial, conducting polymer) onto a SiNW array. This gave very promising results for photovoltaic cells based on this heterojunction, with a photon capture efficiency (PCE) of 6.72% [15]. The resulting SiNW/PEDOT/PSS

• -type Si substrate conductive in the anodic area. The deposition was controlled by a Solartron SI 1287 with a computer running CorrWare software. A non-aqueous medium was preferred over the classical sodium polystyrene sulfonate (NaPSS) aqueous environment in order to avoid the important silicon