Three-gradient regular solution model for simple liquids wetting complex surface topologies

• Sabine Akerboom,
• Marleen Kamperman and
• Frans A. M. Leermakers

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1377–1396, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.129

• interfacial tension γ according to the Young–Laplace equation [17]: ΔP and γ can be considered constant for a droplet (neglecting small curvature corrections, the deformation due to gravity and the near surface contributions expressed in the disjoining pressure), thus J should also be constant [13]. This

• evaluate the surface tension γ, which is given in units kBT/b2, numerically, as discussed in section S1 of Supporting Information File 1. In Figure 3B we prove that near the critical point (i) the surface tension, (ii) the width of the interface and (iii) Δφ as found by our numerical solution accurately

• tension the (mean field) value is −3/2, it is 1/2 for the width of the interface, while the difference in densities of the two phases vanishes with an exponent −1/2 [40]. Our aim is to present results that are relevant for the water/vapour system. Of course a symmetric lattice model falls short in this

Improved lithium-ion battery anode capacity with a network of easily fabricated spindle-like carbon nanofibers

• Mengting Liu,
• Wenhe Xie,
• Lili Gu,
• Tianfeng Qin,
• Xiaoyi Hou and
• Deyan He

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1289–1295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.120

• spindle-like beads on the electrospun nanofibers depends mainly on the viscosity and surface tension of the spinning solution, spinning voltage and receving distance [24][25]. Viewed as a whole, these beaded nanofibers are closely entangled with each other and develop a robust multilayer network, which

Functional diversity of resilin in Arthropoda

• Jan Michels,
• Esther Appel and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1241–1259, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.115

• ) during the upstroke by taking up wing movements and oscillating in length, while the attached pleuro-subalar muscle contracts slowly and tonically and keeps the tendon at a certain length and tension [5][80][81]. This is especially important for hovering and other refined flight manoeuvres [9]. It might

Reasons and remedies for the agglomeration of multilayered graphene and carbon nanotubes in polymers

• Rasheed Atif and
• Fawad Inam

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1174–1196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.109

• wrapping the filler with polymers. The wrapping process involves π–π interactions and van der Waals interactions [2][40]. Surfactants have also been used to functionalize MLG and CNTs. Surfactants are physically adsorbed on the surface of CNTs. It lowers the surface tension of MLG and CNTs diminishing the

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

• were studied and characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The study showed that these domains have similar characteristics to micro- and nanobubbles, such as a spherical shape, smaller contact angle, low line tension, and they exhibit phase contrast and the coalescence phenomenon. However

• films. This study employs AFM and optical microscopy to characterize the spherical-shaped domains that readily nucleate on the PS film after immersion in DI water. The radius, height, contact angle (CA) and line tension are analyzed in detail. The coalescence, stiffness and phase contrast analysis were

• given in Figure 3a. Figure 3a shows that the contact angle changes linearly with respect to radius/lateral size up to 2.0 µm. Beyond this size, the contact angle changes in such a way that an exact correlation becomes difficult. Analysis of line tension The line tension is defined as the excess energy

Determination of Young’s modulus of Sb₂S₃ nanowires by in situ resonance and bending methods

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Alexander I. Livshits,
• Juris Prikulis,
• Subhajit Biswas,
• Justin D. Holmes and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 278–283, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.25

• mechanical loading where one side of the NW is being under compression while the other is under tension, which agrees well with the consistent results between the methods. Conclusion We have experimentally obtained Young’s modulus of individual Sb2S3 NWs combining two different techniques, namely mechanical

Influence of calcium on ceramide-1-phosphate monolayers

• Joana S. L. Oliveira,
• Gerald Brezesinski,
• Alexandra Hill and
• Arne Gericke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 236–245, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.22

• barrier and a Wilhelmy surface tension sensor. The temperature was kept at 20 °C by a thermostat. During experiments, the trough was kept hermetically sealed and flushed with He. At BW1 (DESY, Hamburg) the synchrotron beam was monochromated through a beryllium(002) crystal to a wavelength of 1.304 Å

Plasticity-mediated collapse and recrystallization in hollow copper nanowires: a molecular dynamics simulation

• Amlan Dutta,
• Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri and
• Tanusri Saha-Dasgupta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 228–235, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.21

• disordered atoms is much higher as compared to their crystalline counterparts since they access a relatively larger free volume. This causes a radially inward drift of the inner surface driven by surface tension. This inward drift results into large local stresses on the residual crystalline parts of the

• subsequent elimination of stacking faults within the interior of the NW, after the inner surface is eliminated at the end of stage 1. We note that the nucleation of faults and defects is energetically less expensive in the presence of a surface, and that of an effective load generated by the surface tension

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

• synthesiser. This solution was then pumped into the reactor during synthesis at a rate of 35 μL·min−1 giving an addition rate of 16.2 mg·min−1 for SDS and 1.74 mg·min−1 for CTAB. The addition rate was crucial to maintain a surface tension of 41 mJ·m−2, which is both the optimum surface tension for graphene

• automation would require the monitoring of surface tension throughout the synthesis as well as automatic adjustments to the surfactant flow rate to maintain this at the required level of 41 mJ·m−2. Figure 1 depicts the assembled apparatus, the function of which is explained here. The aqueous suspension of

• adding surface tension sensors to control the amount of surfactant being added to the reactor, thus maintaining a constant and optimum surface tension. The formation of individual graphene flakes and the interaction of alkyl chains of the surfactants with graphene were, respectively, confirmed with Raman

Synthesis and applications of carbon nanomaterials for energy generation and storage

• Marco Notarianni,
• Jinzhang Liu,
• Kristy Vernon and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 149–196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.17

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

• featured the characteristic double-handle contour length of 680 nm at a tension of approx. 10 pN. Fluorescence measurements of Qdot–streptavidin conjugates that were attached to freely accessible DIG -λ-dsDNA-Bio strands. a) The blue circle highlights the fluorescent emission of a quantum dot at 525 nm

Large area scanning probe microscope in ultra-high vacuum demonstrated for electrostatic force measurements on high-voltage devices

• Urs Gysin,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Thomas Schmölzer,
• Adolf Schöner,
• Sergey Reshanov,
• Holger Bartolf and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2485–2497, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.258

• (panel a) and the photographic (panel b) image of the complete AFM system. The beam deflection and scanner units are mounted together on top of the coarse positioner and represent the heart of the microscope. The system is attached to a CF200 flange and is suspended on four tension springs. Strong

• piezo actuators. The stages are compressed by three flexures. The piezo step motor in the aperture of the scanner allows to approach the sample to the probe with nanoscale accuracy. The atomic force microscope is assembled on a CF200 flange with four tension springs. Copper fins and magnets serve as an

Nanostructured superhydrophobic films synthesized by electrodeposition of fluorinated polyindoles

• Gabriela Ramos Chagas,
• Thierry Darmanin and
• Frédéric Guittard

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2078–2087, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.212

• Interference (PSI) working mode, the objective 50× and the field of view (FOV) 0.5×. The scanning electron microscopy images were obtained by using a 6700F microscope of JEOL. The contact angles were determined by using a DSA30 goniometer of Krüss. Liquids of different surface tension were chosen to

Near-field visualization of plasmonic lenses: an overall analysis of characterization errors

• Jing Wang,
• Yongqi Fu,
• Zongwei Xu and
• Fengzhou Fang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2069–2077, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.211

• the FIB point-by-point writing. Internal stress FIB bombardment with ion energies below 30 keV produces surface diffusion and tension down to about 30 nm underneath the surface of the etched structures. One by-product of ion beam sputtering is erosion. The arrival of ions on the sample surface is a

Lower nanometer-scale size limit for the deformation of a metallic glass by shear transformations revealed by quantitative AFM indentation

• Arnaud Caron and
• Roland Bennewitz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1721–1732, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.176

• shear steps at the sample surface and discrete load drops in the stress–strain curves that are attributed to the operation of single shear bands. Below a critical sample diameter though, the surface of samples tested in compression or tension are devoid of shear steps or shear bands and the plastic

Thermal treatment of magnetite nanoparticles

• Beata Kalska-Szostko,
• Urszula Wykowska,
• Dariusz Satula and
• Per Nordblad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1385–1396, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.143

• , structural defects, tension, composition variation, crystal imperfections, etc.) significantly contribute to the broadening of the line width of the XRD patterns [33]. Therefore, the average particle size calculated this way is only a rough estimation. The temperature dependence of the line width also shows

The Kirkendall effect and nanoscience: hollow nanospheres and nanotubes

• Abdel-Aziz El Mel,
• Ryusuke Nakamura and
• Carla Bittencourt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1348–1361, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.139

• to the interplay between the surface tension of the metal bismuth present in a liquid phase and the curved inner surface of the oxide shell. It is also believed that the wetting behavior of bismuth on the inner surface of the oxide shell can be influenced by other parameters such as the vapor

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

• elsewhere [35][43][44]. In their study, they claimed that the contact angle is a function of radius of curvature. This is mainly due to the existence of line tension along the three phase contact line. Here one should note that the tip radius, contact angle, as well as width shown in Figure 9 are the

Structure and mechanism of the formation of core–shell nanoparticles obtained through a one-step gas-phase synthesis by electron beam evaporation

• Andrey V. Nomoev,
• Sergey P. Bardakhanov,
• Makoto Schreiber,
• Dashima G. Bazarova,
• Nikolai A. Romanov,
• Boris B. Baldanov,
• Bair R. Radnaev and
• Viacheslav V. Syzrantsev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 874–880, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.89

• particles are investigated in order to elucidate their mechanisms of formation and factors affecting the synthesis. It is proposed that the formation of Cu@silica particles is mainly driven by surface tension differences between Cu and Si while the formation of Ag@Si particles is mainly driven by

• system. In many cases, the surface tension of a liquid has a temperature dependence of the form which is valid for a certain temperature range above the melting temperature (Tm) of the material where σ(Tm) is the surface tension at the melting point of the material and dσ/dT is the rate of change of the

• surface tension with temperature [14]. The empirical dependence of the surface tension of copper with temperature is [15]. The surface tension of silicon varies as [16]. Below the melting point, when the materials are solid, the surface energy is the solid equivalent of the surface tension. The surface

Applications of three-dimensional carbon nanotube networks

• Manuela Scarselli,
• Paola Castrucci,
• Francesco De Nicola,
• Ilaria Cacciotti,
• Francesca Nanni,
• Emanuela Gatto,
• Mariano Venanzi and
• Maurizio De Crescenzi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 792–798, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.82

• in contact with water from the equation [19]: where γLV denotes the surface tension of the liquid–vapor (LV) interface for water γLV = 72.5 mN/m, and Θ is the measured contact angle (Θ = 175°). The estimated adhesion force of the water droplet (20 µL) reported in Figure 4b, is about 50 µN. Measuring

• contacting the water droplet, θ* is the apparent contact angle, and θ is the Young’s contact angle of the surface, with cosθ defined as: where γSV, γSL, and γLV denote the surface tension of the solid–vapor (SV), the solid–liquid (SL), and the liquid–vapor (LV) interface, respectively. If we insert in

Influence of grain size and composition, topology and excess free volume on the deformation behavior of Cu–Zr nanoglasses

• Daniel Şopu and
• Karsten Albe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 537–545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.56

• these NGs and compared to the case of homogeneous BMGs by deforming in uniaxial tension parallel to the z-direction with a constant strain rate of 4 · 107 s−1 at T = 50 K. 3D periodic boundary conditions were applied to exclude surface effects. The pressure in x and y direction was kept at 0 kbar

• grain sizes of = 4, 10 and 16 nm (see Table 1). All NGs and a BMG (≈1.3 · 106 atoms) were deformed in tension following the procedure described above. The stress–strain curves of all three NGs and the BMG under tensile deformation are plotted in Figure 1. Up to a strain of about 2%, all four curves

• were quenched to 50 K and deformed in uniaxial tension. In case of annealed Cu-rich NG (NG2) the plastic deformation no longer takes place in a network of multiple shear bands, and one dominant shear band is formed (see Figure 5 lower panel). Nevertheless, as it was already shown in [12] the plastic

Nanoparticle shapes by using Wulff constructions and first-principles calculations

• Georgios D. Barmparis,
• Zbigniew Lodziana,
• Nuria Lopez and
• Ioannis N. Remediakis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 361–368, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.35

• . The quantity γhkl is the energy required to create a surface of unit area normal to the [hkl] vector, and is the analogous of the surface tension for liquids. This process is repeated for all sets of Miller indexes, (hkl). The space that lies inside all these planes defines the equilibrium shape for

• theorem is a generalization that considers lateral strain [14]. When the material under study is at equilibrium with another gas- or liquid-phase material, the interface tension, , is used in the Wulff construction instead of the surface tension, γhkl. The two are connected by a simple formula that

• , they have a much higher surface tension than low-index faces; (if a high-index surface and a low-index surface have equal surface tensions, the low-index will have a greater area as the high-index face will be steeper and will be hidden in the Wulff construction); does not take into account edge- and

Exploiting the hierarchical morphology of single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotube films for highly hydrophobic coatings

• Francesco De Nicola,
• Paola Castrucci,
• Manuela Scarselli,
• Francesca Nanni,
• Ilaria Cacciotti and
• Maurizio De Crescenzi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 353–360, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.34

• since ethanol has a lower liquid–vapor surface tension (γLV = 22 mJ·m−2) than water (γLV = 72 mJ·m−2), the higher the ethanol concentration in water, the lower the surface tension of the solution. Furthermore, the contact angle is generally proportional to the liquid surface tension by the Young’s

• relation where γSV and γSL are the solid–vapor and solid–liquid surface tensions, respectively. Therefore, also the contact angles of the carbon nanotube films decrease with the decrease in surface tension of the liquid droplet. This phenomenon is connected to the lipophilicity of the apolar surface of the

• respect to the MWCNT surface. Wetting states are studied changing the liquid surface tension by adding different ethanol concentrations in water. Wenzel regime (green solid line) fit reports a roughness factor r = 1.08 ± 0.01, while lipophilic (blue solid line) and hydrophobic (red solid line) Cassie

Mechanical properties of MDCK II cells exposed to gold nanorods

• Anna Pietuch,
• Bastian Rouven Brückner,
• David Schneider,
• Marco Tarantola,
• Christina Rosman,
• Carsten Sönnichsen and
• Andreas Janshoff

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 223–231, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.21

• CTAB coated rods suggesting an increase in acoustic load corresponding to a larger stiffness (storage modulus). Keywords: atomic force microscopy; CTAB; gold nanorods; membrane tension; MDCK II cells; QCM; Introduction The interest in gold nanoparticles (NP) for biomedical applications in the field

• of Hertzian mechanics to describe the elasticity of cells we also used a recently introduced tension model treating the cells as a liquid droplet (red continuous lines in Figure 3) [27][28]. According to the tension model we consider the cell as an isotropic elastic shell that produces a restoring

• force in response to indentation with a conical indenter originating from two sources, linear elasticity due to area dilatation and pre-stress (constant tension). Pre-stress is mainly generated by contractile actomyosin, strong adhesion at the cell-borders and interaction of the plasma membrane with the

The capillary adhesion technique: a versatile method for determining the liquid adhesion force and sample stiffness

• Daniel Gandyra,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Stanislav Gorb,
• Wilhelm Barthlott and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 11–18, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.2

• is required, which consists of the surface energy of the meniscus plus the interface energy of the tip–water contact area minus the surface energy of the original flat air–water interface before formation of the capillary contact. Here, σ = 0.07275 N/m [25] is the surface tension of the liquid (here

• , water), and σ* is the interface tension of the contact area. Although the value of σ* is unknown, it is not required for further calculations (see below). The force pulling at the trichome tip is equal to its water adhesion force and is given by: Based on the images before and after the meniscus snap

• hair with Teflon-coated ends (poly(1,1,2,2-tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE), Teflon AF, Dupont, water contact angle approx. 120°). 15 hairs of each type were examined. They were fixed horizontally with the tweezers on a stepper motor, which served as a bending spring in contrast to the tension spring setup