A review on the biological effects of nanomaterials on silkworm (Bombyx mori)

• Sandra Senyo Fometu,
• Guohua Wu,
• Lin Ma and
• Joan Shine Davids

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 190–202, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.15

• ), sensitivity, and moderate body size make Caenorhabditis elegans (nematode) [45] an ideal model organism to study environmental nanotoxicity at the nanoscale level. C. elegans was used as a model organism to evaluate the impact of an exposure to a 50–100 mg/L dose of graphite, graphite oxide nanoplatelets, and

Imaging of SARS-CoV-2 infected Vero E6 cells by helium ion microscopy

• Natalie Frese,
• Patrick Schmerer,
• Martin Wortmann,
• Matthias Schürmann,
• Matthias König,
• Michael Westphal,
• Friedemann Weber,
• Holger Sudhoff and
• Armin Gölzhäuser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 172–179, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.13

• Helium ion microscopy (HIM) offers the opportunity to obtain direct views of biological samples such as cellular structures, virus particles, and microbial interactions. Imaging with the HIM combines sub-nanometer resolution, large depth of field, and high surface sensitivity. Due to its charge

Paper-based triboelectric nanogenerators and their applications: a review

• Jing Han,
• Nuo Xu,
• Yuchen Liang,
• Mei Ding,
• Junyi Zhai,
• Qijun Sun and
• Zhong Lin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 151–171, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.12

• TENG structure with a high sensitivity and a wide range of humidity detection. The corresponding mechanism of a self-powered GO P-TENG humidity sensor is displayed in Figure 8a. In general, GO P-TENG sensors respond to humidity due to the physical adsorption of water molecules on the surface of the GO

• that utilizes the output performances as sensing signals. The achieved high sensitivity of 500% (V/V-%RH) is useful for portable/wearable electronics and for potential industrial applications due to its flexibility and lightweight. Regarding height sensors, Xia et al. proposed a stacked 3D zigzag

A review on the green and sustainable synthesis of silver nanoparticles and one-dimensional silver nanostructures

• Sina Kaabipour and
• Shohreh Hemmati

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 102–136, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.9

• in sheet resistance and to increase touch sensitivity [89]. Furthermore, AgNWs can be used to prepare AgNW-based conductive inks that have remarkable rheological characteristics such as thixotropic shear thinning and thus, can be simply used for screen printing without the addition of polymeric

Bulk chemical composition contrast from attractive forces in AFM force spectroscopy

• Dorothee Silbernagl,
• Media Ghasem Zadeh Khorasani,
• Natalia Cano Murillo,
• Anna Maria Elert and
• Heinz Sturm

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 58–71, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.5

• spectroscopy needs to be overcome. Despite the fact that AFM, in general, has a high sensitivity for physical properties and physical material contrasts, it is usually considered to lack sensitivity to detect chemical or structural information. Therefore, the magnitude and extent of different material phases

• attractive forces are clearly dominated by the van der Waals interactions and correlate with AHam. As an example, the specificity and sensitivity of Fattr for different materials is shown in Figure 2a for averaged example curves (average of approximately 50 curves) of different neat solids: glass (black

• two inorganic materials, glass and boehmite (γ-AlOOH), with up to four (epoxy) and three (boehmite) different sample–tip pairings. We also have a very strong indication that this parameter has a certain sensitivity for subsurface structures (model sample epoxy/PC). Consequently, by sensing into some

ZnO and MXenes as electrode materials for supercapacitor devices

• Ameen Uddin Ammar,
• Ipek Deniz Yildirim,
• Feray Bakan and
• Emre Erdem

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 49–57, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.4

• the existence of the defects. Owing to the extreme sensitivity of EPR spectroscopy (1011 spins/g) to paramagnetically active defect centers, one may correlate the information on the local electronic configuration from EPR spectra with Raman and PL spectra. Thus, when such semiconductor materials are

Bio-imaging with the helium-ion microscope: A review

• Matthias Schmidt,
• James M. Byrne and
• Ilari J. Maasilta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 1–23, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.1

• resembles a field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), but the use of helium ions rather than electrons provides several advantages, including higher surface sensitivity, larger depth of field, and a straightforward charge-compensating electron flood gun, which enables imaging of non-conductive

• the secondary electron. In SEM, the acceleration voltage of the electron beam needs to be lowered to yield low-energy secondary electrons. This increases surface sensitivity since only secondary electrons produced directly under the surface will be able to overcome the work function of the sample and

• surface in order to avoid charging. Charge compensation can even be considered to be necessary for conductive metals, because the high surface sensitivity of the HIM would only reveal the metal layer and not the fine detail of the surface ultrastructure without the use of the flood gun. From a practical

Piezotronic effect in AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterojunction nanowires used as a flexible strain sensor

• Jianqi Dong,
• Liang Chen,
• Yuqing Yang and
• Xingfu Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1847–1853, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.166

• the fabricated piezotronic strain sensor. The gauge factor is as high as 30 under compressive or tensile stress, which indicates a high sensitivity of the strain sensor. Periodic strain tests show the high stability and repeatability of the sensor. The working mechanism of the strain sensor is

• into electrical signals. They exhibit a potential for application in health-monitoring and motion-monitoring devices, and in artificial intelligence, for example [20][21][22]. However, high sensitivity (gauge factor ≥20) is key to detect a very small deformation of a given material [23][24]. Therefore

• % tensile strain, which shows its high sensitivity. Furthermore, the current increases with an increase in the tensile strain and decreases with an increase in the compressive strain along the c-axis. The current returns to its original value after release of the mechanical stress. At the same time, the

Molecular dynamics modeling of the influence forming process parameters on the structure and morphology of a superconducting spin valve

• Alexander Vakhrushev,
• Aleksey Fedotov,
• Vladimir Boian,
• Roman Morari and
• Anatolie Sidorenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1776–1788, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.160

• structures are highly sensitivity to magnetic field switching and energy consumption is significantly reduced due to the absence of dissipation in such a valve in the ground (superconducting) state. Practice shows that the creation of multilayer S/F nanostructures with the required properties is an

Mapping of integrated PIN diodes with a 3D architecture by scanning microwave impedance microscopy and dynamic spectroscopy

• Rosine Coq Germanicus,
• Peter De Wolf,
• Florent Lallemand,
• Catherine Bunel,
• Serge Bardy,
• Hugues Murray and
• Ulrike Lüders

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1764–1775, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.159

• architecture is analysed. sMIM measurements of the different layers of the PIN diode are presented and discussed in terms of detection mechanism, sensitivity, and precision. In the second part, supported by analytic calculations of the equivalent nano-MIS capacitor, a new multidimensional approach, including a

• -frequency (approx. 100 kHz) AC voltage (VAC) is applied to the tip–sample system in order to generate the movement of free carriers [18]. At a fixed DC bias, the capacitance variation is measured with a highly sensitive capacitance sensor with a sensitivity of approx. 10−19 F·Hz−1/2. In addition, the

• detected phase sign indicates the majority carrier type and, hereby, enables the distinction between n-type and p-type semiconductor regions. In this way, SCM is applied to map the local carrier concentration and carrier type in semiconductor materials with a sensitivity between 1015 and 1020 atoms·cm−3

Application of contact-resonance AFM methods to polymer samples

• Sebastian Friedrich and
• Brunero Cappella

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1714–1727, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.154

• curves in well-defined spatial intervals, can take several hours to complete. In order to overcome these drawbacks, dynamic scanning methods are a promising alternative to force–distance curves. For example, intermittent-contact (or tapping) mode AFM shows sensitivity to mechanical properties in the

• sphere (Sigma-Aldrich) with a radius of 1.5 µm that has been glued to a NSC15 tipless cantilever with kc = 40 N/m (MikroMasch, Sofia, Bulgaria) using two-component epoxy UHU Endfest 300 (UHU, Bühl, Germany). Before the measurement, the sensitivity of the cantilever has been calibrated by recording force

The influence of an interfacial hBN layer on the fluorescence of an organic molecule

• Christine Brülke,
• Oliver Bauer and
• Moritz M. Sokolowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1663–1684, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.149

• LUMO of PTCDA was found on Ag(111), but not on Au(111) [33]. Thus, the quenching on Ag(111) is directly understood by the static charge transfer seen in UPS. The quenching on Au(111), not as evident from UPS, demonstrates the sensitivity of FL spectroscopy to an overlap of wave functions of excited

• . The special sensitivity of the RB mode to the interfacial bonding was also seen in high-resolution electron loss spectra [59]. We also compare with PTCDA multilayers. The Raman shifts of the multilayers was found at similar energies on all three substrates, that is, at 1,309.8 cm−1 for multilayers of

Piezoelectric sensor based on graphene-doped PVDF nanofibers for sign language translation

• Shuai Yang,
• Xiaojing Cui,
• Rui Guo,
• Zhiyi Zhang,
• Shengbo Sang and
• Hulin Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1655–1662, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.148

• a high sensitivity to pressing and bending, and there is a stable correlation between bending angle and piezoelectric voltage. The sensitivity can be adjusted by changing the doping concentration of GR. Also, when the PES contacts a source of heat, a pyroelectric signal can be acquired. The positive

• PVDF nanofibers. The fiber properties after electrospinning were measured, and a potential application of the PES in the translation of sign language was successfully demonstrated. The designed PES shows a high sensitivity regarding both pressure and bending. In particular, a stable angle mapping under

• bending could be obtained. The amount of GR doping has an impact on sensitivity. In addition, the sensor will generate a large pyroelectric signal when it is touched with a hot object, which can be used to prevent burns of the hands. When the PES is integrated in a measuring circuit, it can accurately

Selective detection of complex gas mixtures using point contacts: concept, method and tools

• Alexander P. Pospelov,
• Victor I. Belan,
• Dmytro O. Harbuz,
• Volodymyr L. Vakula,
• Lyudmila V. Kamarchuk,
• Yuliya V. Volkova and
• Gennadii V. Kamarchuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1631–1643, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.146

• point contacts enable the measurement of the electric conductance variations when they are equivalent to at least one conductance quantum. This guarantees an extremely high sensitivity of the point-contact sensors and the measurement of minute energy perturbations occurring during the interaction of the

• procedures involves lowering the sensitivity threshold of the sensor in relation to a wider list of controlled substances and their derivatives. This, in turn, requires a finer and more detailed analysis of the features of the response curve configuration. A reliable tool for the precise differentiation of a

• study clearly demonstrate the indisputable advantages of using nanotechnology in the field of sensor technology to develop and improve environmental-monitoring tools. The level at which the components of the analyzed complex gaseous medium were identified and the sensitivity of this detection

A self-powered, flexible ultra-thin Si/ZnO nanowire photodetector as full-spectrum optical sensor and pyroelectric nanogenerator

• Liang Chen,
• Jianqi Dong,
• Miao He and
• Xingfu Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1623–1630, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.145

• effect based on the ZnO pyroelectric material. Moreover, response time and high sensitivity are almost the same at each wavelength, and the device exhibits excellent stability and repeatability in the UV–visible–NIR range. Therefore, the self-powered p-Si/n-ZnO NWs heterojunction device can be applied in

PTCDA adsorption on CaF₂ thin films

• Philipp Rahe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1615–1622, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.144

• in STM imaging of PTCDA/Ag(111) with an s-tip at a bias between −0.4 and −0.5 V [12] and explained by strong domination of the LUMO. In contrast, imaging at larger tip–sample distance and the according loss of sensitivity to intramolecular features was given as an explanation for the prevalently

Fabrication of nano/microstructures for SERS substrates using an electrochemical method

• Jingran Zhang,
• Tianqi Jia,
• Xiaoping Li,
• Junjie Yang,
• Zhengkai Li,
• Guangfeng Shi,
• Xinming Zhang and
• Zuobin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1568–1576, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.139

• can be used to detect low levels of proteins (10−6 mol·L−1). Due to its reliability, homogeneity, low cost and high sensitivity, the system described herein holds great promise for future protein detection and quantification applications. Schematic diagram of fabrication of the nanopores substrates

Electrokinetic characterization of synthetic protein nanoparticles

• Daniel F. Quevedo,
• Cody J. Lentz,
• Adriana Coll de Peña,
• Yazmin Hernandez,
• Nahal Habibi,
• Rikako Miki,
• Joerg Lahann and
• Blanca H. Lapizco-Encinas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1556–1567, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.138

• used for therapeutic purposes could be made from a mixture of different proteins in a single particle, with a carrier protein and an active protein (e.g., an enzyme) [6]. To investigate the sensitivity of EK microfluidics to detect differences in blends of two proteins in single particles, SPNPs were

Cu₂O nanoparticles for the degradation of methyl parathion

• Juan Rizo,
• David Díaz,
• Benito Reyes-Trejo and
• M. Josefina Arellano-Jiménez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1546–1555, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.137

• practically insoluble in water (Ksp = 2 × 10−15 @ 25 °C). Since the NPs remain in the powder form throughout the entire degradation, XRD is a very useful technique for the characterization of Cu2O. Figure 1 shows the powder XRD of the Cu2O NPs before and after the degradation of MP. As far as the sensitivity

Optically and electrically driven nanoantennas

• Monika Fleischer,
• Dai Zhang and
• Alfred J. Meixner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1542–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.136

• configurations with increasing control over their optical performance [1][2][3][4]. The strong local near-field enhancement by plasmonic nanoantennas is being harnessed for high sensitivity, high-resolution optical nanospectroscopy techniques [5], such as surface-enhanced or tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS

• ultrahigh sensitivity sensing the central feature for tightly confining and enhancing the optical near-field is a narrow gap between two metallic nanoparticles or tips. Creating such gaps to obtain a controlled distribution of hotspots, for example, on a chip, is no trivial task. This has been pursued using

• are on the lookout for nanotips that can be prepared fast and with reproducible properties, and at the same time, aim for ever higher field enhancement and localization to improve the sensitivity and spatial resolution of the TERS information. In [47], an earlier protocol for etching thin gold wires

Design of V-shaped cantilevers for enhanced multifrequency AFM measurements

• Mehrnoosh Damircheli and
• Babak Eslami

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1525–1541, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.135

• vibrational behavior of rectangular and V-shaped AFM cantilevers using FEM [27]. All abovementioned researchers focused on the accuracy and sensitivity of the microscope by interpreting and analyzing the dynamic and vibration behavior. One way to increase accuracy and sensitivity in atomic force microscopy is

• exciting the higher modes of the cantilever (higher-modes AFM) or exciting multiple modes simultaneously (multifrequency AFM). It is important to simulate the dynamic and vibration behavior of the AFM under these conditions to interpret the dependency of sensitivity and material composition contrast on

• , regardless of the dimensions of the rectangular cantilever selected, the user has can only control the sensitivity of the cantilever to tip–sample force interactions via the oscillation amplitude. In contrast, for V-shaped cantilevers, based on the length of the cantilever, the tip–sample force interactions

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

• difficult nature of observing Li with traditional microanalytical techniques. Also Li represents a “best-case” scenario for isotopic measurements. Here we present details of sample preparation, instrument sensitivity, theoretical, and measured detection limits for both elemental and isotopic analysis as

• . This combined HIM–SIMS instrument has intriguing possibilities for geological materials as, unlike previous SIMS techniques limited by the probe size of the primary beam, the small beam size theoretically allows for chemical mapping at high sensitivity with the spatial resolution controlled only by

• silicates, which make up most geological materials on Earth, requires additional sample preparation, which, if performed incorrectly, can have a negative impact on both qualitative and quantitative use of the instrument. Here, we demonstrate the instrumental sensitivity, capability, and repeatability of the

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

• value, below which charge transfer into 6P molecules occurs. The extreme sensitivity to ΦMgO shown in Figure 4 explains the apparently ambivalent results obtained from STM and photoemission tomography in the previous section, as the accepted procedure for growing epitaxial MgO(100) films on Ag(100) [19

A wideband cryogenic microwave low-noise amplifier

• Boris I. Ivanov,
• Dmitri I. Volkhin,
• Ilya L. Novikov,
• Dmitri K. Pitsun,
• Dmitri O. Moskalev,
• Ilya A. Rodionov,
• Evgeni Il’ichev and
• Aleksey G. Vostretsov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1484–1491, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.131

• output of the setup. In order to increase the sensitivity we applied an additional low-noise broadband room-temperature microwave amplifier (see rLNA in Figure 3a) directly to the 300 K cryostat SMA output flange. The gain G2 and noise P2 properties of the rLNA were characterized before by means of a

• sensitivity and measurement speed of the full measurement setup is obviously defined by the signal-to-noise ratio and, thus, by the gain and the noise temperature of the cLNA. The sample under study contained superconducting X-mon qubits coupled to coplanar quarter wavelength resonators. Each resonator was

• has a gain of more than 30 dB and a noise temperature lower than 6 K and is suitable for any high-sensitivity experiments in the presented frequency range. It is also necessary to mention that, during the qubit measurements with the implemented cLNA, the cryostat operating parameters, that is, the

On the frequency dependence of viscoelastic material characterization with intermittent-contact dynamic atomic force microscopy: avoiding mischaracterization across large frequency ranges

• Enrique A. López-Guerra and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1409–1418, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.125

• material 2 at 70 kHz, whereby material 2 appears much stiffer than material 1. Furthermore, the near absence of dissipation in the force curves of both materials supports the observed lack of phase sensitivity to material differences, in agreement with the literature [36][37]. For the simulation at 350 kHz