Reversible mechano-electrochemical writing of metallic nanostructures with the tip of an atomic force microscope

• Christian Obermair,
• Marina Kress,
• Andreas Wagner and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 824–830, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.92

• as in Figure 3b 1.5 years after the electrochemical deposition of the copper structure, thus showing the long-term stability of the resulting structures under ambient conditions. The typical humidity of the laboratory air over this time period of 1.5 years varied between 30% and 90% relative humidity

Effect of spherical Au nanoparticles on nanofriction and wear reduction in dry and liquid environments

• Dave Maharaj and
• Bharat Bhushan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 759–772, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.85

• ) have also been manipulated in water and ethanol with an AFM operated in intermittent-contact mode [34]. In addition to the contact-area dependence of friction observed in these studies, the relative-humidity (RH) dependence of friction was investigated by Mougin et al. [32] and Palacio and Bhushan [31

• results section. All experiments were performed at room temperature (23 °C) and 50–55% relative humidity. Macroscale friction and wear For comparison to the nanoscale, macroscale friction tests were conducted by using a ball-on-flat tribometer to determine if similar effects would be observed on both

Friction and durability of virgin and damaged skin with and without skin cream treatment using atomic force microscopy

• Bharat Bhushan,
• Si Chen and
• Shirong Ge

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 731–746, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.83

• friction and durability of damaged skin were measured and compared with those of virgin (intact/undamaged) skin. The effect of skin cream on friction and durability of damaged and virgin skin samples is discussed. The effects of velocity, normal load, relative humidity and number of cycles were studied

• skin to study the effect of skin cream. The effect of velocity, normal load, relative humidity and number of cycles on friction was studied. Experiments were also carried out on the macroscale to study the scale effects. Both rat skin and pig skin were used as skin models in this study as they are

• varied from 0.4 to 4 mm/s over a stroke length of 2.5 mm at the normal load of 50 mN. For the effect of normal load experiments, the normal load was varied from 10 to 50 mN over a stroke length of 2.5 mm at a velocity of 0.4 mm/s. Effect of relative humidity measurements A homemade humidity-control

Paper modified with ZnO nanorods – antimicrobial studies

• Mayuree Jaisai,
• Sunandan Baruah and
• Joydeep Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 684–691, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.78

• , fungal infections in books are treated by using chemical methods. Libraries need to be maintained at a temperature and relative humidity that are not conducive to fungal growth [1]. Paper with antimicrobial properties could be an answer to the problems faced by libraries and health centers. Silver (Ag

Polymer blend lithography: A versatile method to fabricate nanopatterned self-assembled monolayers

• Cheng Huang,
• Markus Moosmann,
• Jiehong Jin,
• Tobias Heiler,
• Stefan Walheim and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 620–628, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.71

• the formed polymer blend structures in our case are also strongly dependent upon the relative humidity during the demixing. The relative humidity influences the interaction of the two polymer phases and the affinity of the polymers to the substrate [59]. This effect has to be distinguished from the

• formation of so-called breath figures, which are formed at high relative humidity (over 60%) due to water condensation on the evaporatively cooled polymer solution [60][61]. The breath figure technique can be applied to generate nearly hexagonal arrays of holes [61] or for the fabrication of 3-D structures

• complex structure-formation process. Three-phase templates For a range of relative humidity from 50 to 65%, the resulting phase morphology is different from the situation shown in Figure 3 (45% humidity). As can be seen in Figure 5b, holes in the polymer film can be observed directly after spin coating

FTIR nanobiosensors for Escherichia coli detection

• Stefania Mura,
• Gianfranco Greppi,
• Maria Laura Marongiu,
• Pier Paolo Roggero,
• Sandeep P. Ravindranath,
• Lisa J. Mauer,
• Nicoletta Schibeci,
• Francesco Perria,
• Massimo Piccinini,
• Plinio Innocenzi and
• Joseph Irudayaraj

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 485–492, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.55

• ) oriented (one side polished and one side etched) were obtained from Jocam (Italy). Film preparation Titania (TiO2) thin films were prepared by dipping silicon wafers in a solution composed of TiCl4/Pluronic F127/H2O/EtOH (1:0.005:10:40) under controlled conditions of temperature and RH (relative humidity

Conducting composite materials from the biopolymer kappa-carrageenan and carbon nanotubes

• Ali Aldalbahi,
• Jin Chu,
• Peter Feng and
• Marc in het Panhuis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 415–427, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.48

• target gas (humidified air, H2 and CH4), respectively. The sensitivity of the films to humidity was investigated over a relative humidity change from 40% to 90%. All films responded to the change in humidity, but it was not possible to detect any response after exposure to H2 and CH4 gases at 25 °C

• = 55 mm), which were then dried under controlled conditions (35 °C, relative humidity, RH = 45%) in a temperature–humidity chamber (Thermoline Scientific) for 24 h. The resulting films were peeled off the substrate to yield uniform free-standing films (Figure 9b). Preparation of films by vacuum

Mesoporous MgTa₂O₆ thin films with enhanced photocatalytic activity: On the interplay between crystallinity and mesostructure

• Jin-Ming Wu,
• Igor Djerdj,
• Till von Graberg and
• Bernd M. Smarsly

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 123–133, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.13

• ) was added, and the final precursor was stirred for a further 6–10 h before dip-coating. This amount of block copolymers was found to be optimum with respect to the mesostructural organization. The MgTa2O6 thin films were deposited on Si wafers by dip coating at a controlled relative humidity of 12

Self-assembly of octadecyltrichlorosilane: Surface structures formed using different protocols of particle lithography

• ChaMarra K. Saner,
• Kathie L. Lusker,
• Zorabel M. LeJeune,
• Wilson K. Serem and
• Jayne C. Garno

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 114–122, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.12

• pellet was resuspended with 300 µL of deionized water by vortex mixing to prepare a 1% w/v solution. The washing process was repeated twice. A drop (10–15 µL) of the cleaned mesospheres was deposited onto clean Si(111) substrates and dried under ambient conditions (25 °C, ~50% relative humidity) for at

Octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS)-coated ionic liquid drops: Micro-reactors for homogenous catalytic reactions at designated interfaces

• Xiaoning Zhang and
• Yuguang Cai

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 33–39, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.4

• . Next, the OTS-coated samples were rinsed in toluene and annealed in a sealed vial at 40 °C, 100% relative humidity (RH) for 12 h. Subsequently, the samples were incubated in a 5 mM OTS toluene solution again. The stabilization (rinsing-annealing-OTS solution incubating) process was repeated for three

The effect of surface anisotropy in the slippery zone of Nepenthes alata pitchers on beetle attachment

• Elena V. Gorb and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 302–310, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.35

• Kronshagen (Germany). They were kept in small ventilated cages at a temperature of 22–24 °C and relative humidity of 60–75% for four days and fed with a weak solution of honey in tap water. Water was changed daily and the cages were sprayed with water twice a day. Test surfaces Three types of substrates were

• at a room temperature of 22–24 °C and 55–60% relative humidity. Fifteen beetles were tested in each type of experiment. In all, 210 force measurements were carried out. Data are presented in the text as a mean value ± standard deviation. Kruskal-Wallis one way ANOVA on ranks was used to evaluate the

Manipulation of gold colloidal nanoparticles with atomic force microscopy in dynamic mode: influence of particle–substrate chemistry and morphology, and of operating conditions

• Samer Darwich,
• Karine Mougin,
• Akshata Rao,
• Enrico Gnecco,
• Shrisudersan Jayaraman and
• Hamidou Haidara

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 85–98, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.10

• nanoparticles during their manipulation using AFM in tapping mode has been investigated. In particular, the effects of the size, shape and coating of the nanoparticles, the lateral scan velocity, the particle-surface interactions and the environmental conditions, especially temperature T and relative humidity

• ) substrate [41][42][43]. As we can see here, the eventual role of relative humidity (RH%) which is an environmental parameter, strongly depends on the chemistry of the NP–substrate interface. Another environmental parameter, namely temperature, also affects the mobility of the nanoparticles. The influence of

• and vacuum environment A. Effect of relative humidity The presence of surface contaminants (dust or water) affects the mobility of nanoparticles as this directly changes the intermolecular interactions between the nanoparticles and the surface. As it has been discussed in subsection 2, a contribution

Tip-sample interactions on graphite studied using the wavelet transform

• Giovanna Malegori and
• Gabriele Ferrini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 172–181, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.21

• ) surface. All the experiments have been conducted in air, with a relative humidity of less than 50%. Figure 1 schematically shows the experimental apparatus: the electronic noise level is small enought to detect up to five flexural eigenmodes. The optical lever sensitivity is calibrated by taking the force

The description of friction of silicon MEMS with surface roughness: virtues and limitations of a stochastic Prandtl–Tomlinson model and the simulation of vibration-induced friction reduction

• W. Merlijn van Spengen,
• Viviane Turq and
• Joost W. M. Frenken

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 163–171, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.20

• .; Frenken, J. W. M. Tribol. Lett. 2007, 28, 149–156.] Typical 1000-cycle-average friction loops obtained with the tribometer of Figure 1 [19], at 27 °C and a relative humidity (RH) of 30%. The sliding speed was constant at 5 µm/s. Support position 0 μm is where the loop was started every cycle. This loop is

• (determined as depicted in Figure 3) as a function of the normal load is more or less linear on the scale of MEMS devices. The tests were conducted at 27 °C and a relative humidity of 30%. The fitted friction coefficient is 0.27. Indicated are also the calculated friction force based on an exponential