Electro-optical interfacial effects on a graphene/π-conjugated organic semiconductor hybrid system

• Karolline A. S. Araujo,
• Luiz A. Cury,
• Matheus J. S. Matos,
• Thales F. D. Fernandes,
• Luiz G. Cançado and
• Bernardo R. A. Neves

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 963–974, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.90

• enables a possible structural model for the RA SAM, with RA molecules horizontally aligned on the graphene surface, as illustrated in the schematic model of Figure 1c. In order to confirm the nature of RA rippled domains seen in Figure 1, possible structures of RA–graphene were analyzed by first

Effect of annealing treatments on CeO₂ grown on TiN and Si substrates by atomic layer deposition

• Silvia Vangelista,
• Rossella Piagge,
• Satu Ek and
• Alessio Lamperti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 890–899, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.83

• -pass energy of 23.50 eV. The instrument resolution is 0.5 eV. The spectra were aligned using the C 1s peak (284.6 eV) as reference [29]. The experimental data were fitted with Gaussian–Lorentzian peaks and Shirley background by using the XPSPeak software program (version 4.1, Freeware, University of

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

• , the NLC director is aligned homeotropically at the interface. A similar situation, in which NLC molecules are ordered in the vicinity of nanosized particles, was considered in [41]. However, if the most of azo moieties are converted into the cis isomer under UV irradiation, they provide a degenerated

Graphene composites with dental and biomedical applicability

• Sharali Malik,
• Felicite M. Ruddock,
• Adam H. Dowling,
• Kevin Byrne,
• Wolfgang Schmitt,
• Ivan Khalakhan,
• Yoshihiro Nemoto,
• Hongxuan Guo,
• Lok Kumar Shrestha,
• Katsuhiko Ariga and
• Jonathan P. Hill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 801–808, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.73

• covered with an acetate strip and aligned using nylon wedges and a locating pin. The hand-mixed GI restorative plastic mass was applied to one side of the split-mould immediately after mixing using the stainless steel spatula and allowed to flow into the mould to minimise air bubble incorporation in the

Surface-plasmon-enhanced ultraviolet emission of Au-decorated ZnO structures for gas sensing and photocatalytic devices

• T. Anh Thu Do,
• Truong Giang Ho,
• Thu Hoai Bui,
• Quang Ngan Pham,
• Hong Thai Giang,
• Thi Thu Do,
• Duc Van Nguyen and
• Dai Lam Tran

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 771–779, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.70

• are expected to serve as a potential photocatalysts with highly effective performance. For instance, plasmonic Au NP/vertically aligned ZnO nanorod structures were proposed for water splitting, solar cells, and environmental remediation [17][18][19]. Ag/ZnO nanohybrid structures were synthesized and

Single-step process to improve the mechanical properties of carbon nanotube yarn

• Maria Cecilia Evora,
• Xinyi Lu,
• Nitilaksha Hiremath,
• Nam-Goo Kang,
• Kunlun Hong,
• Roberto Uribe,
• Gajanan Bhat and
• Jimmy Mays

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 545–554, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.52

• challenge to assemble CNTs in materials on the macroscopic scale [3]. Because of the difficulties in dispersing pristine CNTs in polymers, the assembly of CNTs into macroscopic fibers, with the tubes aligned parallel along the CNT yarn axis, has been focused on [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. There are

• between the aligned MWCNTs. The main force that keeps them together is van der Waals forces, which is a weak force. On the other hand, the FIB image of the PAN sample (Figure 5d,e) shows a higher density than untreated yarn (Figure 4c,d), which may be attributed to simultaneous grafting and crosslinking

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

• and whether they are open- or close-ended), their arrays and arrangement in composite materials may lead to different properties. For example, in their recent research, Nam et al. have shown the effect of diameter in a composite material containing aligned CNTs [9]. This study showed that composites

• nanoparticles on the substrate leads to growth of CNT masses in regular rows. In the second category, the arrangement occurs after growth. There have been several review articles written about the alignment methods of CNTs [6][31][32][33][34][35]. However, most of these focus on the synthesis of aligned CNTs

• under the elastic field from the polymer matrix [33] (Figure 3). The stretching ratio depends on the length ratio of the thin layer before/after stretching. Yao et al. prepared a MWCNT/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanocomposite at a relatively high concentration of CNTs and aligned them inside the

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

• combining the electric field action on the liquid crystal molecules in the presence of quantum dots and fINT reflects the interaction between quantum dots and liquid crystal molecules. For a planar aligned cell (Figure 1) with thickness L, and when the voltage is just above the Fréedericksz transition

• was checked by using polarization microscopy. The mass concentration was 0.89%, which led to a volumetric fraction of 1.16% (the QD density is 0.87 g/cm3 and the density of 5CB is 1.02 g/cm3). The mixture was used to fill a 15 μm thick planar aligned cell from Instek, which was mounted in a holder

• 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

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

• multicomponent mixtures which goes beyond the present work. Helical pitch length The parameters of the helical structure, namely the helix pitch length p, were determined on homeotropically aligned samples by measuring the selective light reflection within the temperature range of the tilted ferroelectric SmC

• angle The spontaneous tilt angle θs values have been determined optically using well-aligned samples at bookshelf-like surface-stabilised structures, observing the difference between extinction positions at crossed polarizers under opposite d.c. electric fields ±40 kV·cm−1. Helix pitch length The helix

• pitch length p was determined on homeotropically aligned samples under study placed on a single glass plate while leaving the other surface of the sample free. The measurements of the helical pitch p were based on the selective light reflection phenomenon [60]. The measurements of the temperature

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

• indexes. Thus, the path difference between the ordinary and extraordinary rays for a cell with thickness d can be written as: with the corresponding phase difference Δφ = (2πδ)/λ. For a planar aligned cell in which small values of θ are considered, this phase difference becomes: The intensity of the beam

• free energy of liquid crystals with the applied electric field, is the interaction free energy between LC and SWCNTs and is the interaction free energy of the carbon nanotubes with the applied field. When a planar aligned cell is considered and the electric field is perpendicular to the support (i.e

• 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

• columnar hexagonal phase (380–670 mg/mL) to the crystalline phase. The isotropic phase is the solution at a low rod concentration and lacks orientational and positional orders. In the nematic phase, orientational order is introduced by volume exclusion effects, in a way that the rods are aligned more or

• within each layer. In smectic-B, this liquid-like order is replaced by a hexagonal positional order. The smectic-B phase has not been observed in DNA systems. In the columnar hexagonal phase, the rods are unidirectionally aligned by maintaining a local hexagonal order. The lamellar order is no longer

• [61][62]. The fundamental unit of compact bones, called osteon, is a cylindrical structure which is composed of concentric lamellae. In each coaxial lamellar matrix, collagen fibrils are aligned parallel to each other, helically running around a central canal [63]. This geometry corresponds to the

Nematic liquid crystal alignment on subwavelength metal gratings

• Irina V. Kasyanova,
• Artur R. Geivandov,
• Vladimir V. Artemov,
• Maxim V. Gorkunov and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 42–47, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.6

• the input polarization (Figure 3d), on the contrary, gratings are bright and gratings and the reference squares are dark. Such a behavior proves that the LC director above the gratings is aligned in the plane formed by the sample axis and the normal to the gratings, whereas above the gratings, a

Gas-sensing behaviour of ZnO/diamond nanostructures

• Marina Davydova,
• Alexandr Laposa,
• Jiri Smarhak,
• Alexander Kromka,
• Neda Neykova,
• Josef Nahlik,
• Jiri Kroutil,
• Jan Drahokoupil and
• Jan Voves

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 22–29, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.4

• were exposed to pure hydrogen plasma for 10 min in order to create the p-type surface conductivity (Figure 1a) [29]. Vertically aligned 1-D ZnO nanorod arrays were synthesized either on a bare IDE glass substrate (Figure 1b) or on an IDE glass substrate covered with a diamond thin film (Figure 1c) by

Study of the vertically aligned in-plane switching liquid crystal mode in microscale periodic electric fields

• Artur R. Geivandov,
• Mikhail I. Barnik,
• Irina V. Kasyanova and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 11–19, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.2

• .9.2 Abstract The ongoing interest in fast liquid crystal (LC) modes stimulated by display technology and new applications has motivated us to study in detail the in-plane switching (IPS) vertically aligned (VA) mode. We have studied how the decrease of the period of the interdigitated electrodes (down

• experimental measurements. Keywords: electrooptics; in-plane switching; liquid crystals; vertical alignment; Introduction In 1997, Lee and co-workers discovered a new LC switching mode and called it vertically aligned in-plane switching (VA-IPS) mode [1]. At that time researchers were looking for LC modes

• for all the curves, we can conclude that the use of the transparent electrodes is preferable. Conclusion We have studied the electrooptical performance of vertically aligned LC as a function of the in-plane electrodes geometry. Reducing the electrode period allows for sub-millisecond response times

Magnetic field induced orientational transitions in liquid crystals doped with carbon nanotubes

• Danil A. Petrov,
• Pavel K. Skokov and
• Alexander N. Zakhlevnykh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2807–2817, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.280

• theory describes the behavior of quadrupolar particles embedded in an LC. We analyze another possible way to enhance the anisotropy of diamagnetic susceptibility of LCs by doping them with diamagnetic CNTs. In the magnetized ferronematics (in which the magnetic moments of the ferroparticles are aligned

Thermo- and electro-optical properties of photonic liquid crystal fibers doped with gold nanoparticles

• Agata Siarkowska,
• Miłosz Chychłowski,
• Daniel Budaszewski,
• Bartłomiej Jankiewicz,
• Bartosz Bartosewicz and
• Tomasz R. Woliński

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2790–2801, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.278

• transitions to the isotropic phase. In Figure 5 we show the behavior of undoped and Au-doped (0.3, 0.5 and 1 wt %) LCs inside a MC near the phase transition temperature. For all investigated samples, planar orientation was observed, with maximum light intensity for the sample aligned at 45° relative to the

Dry adhesives from carbon nanofibers grown in an open ethanol flame

• Christian Lutz,
• Julia Syurik,
• C. N. Shyam Kumar,
• Christian Kübel,
• Michael Bruns and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2719–2728, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.271

• in a closed chamber. The standard process for their growth is chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [3], which results in randomly oriented structures, whereas a plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) [4] allows for the growth of aligned structures. During growth of 1D-CNs, oxidized catalytic centers reduce into

• the thermal tune method [34] integrated in the AFM software. All the measurements presented here were conducted with the same cantilever. Results and Discussion Growth of carbon nanofibers Inspired by the study of Zhang and Pan [9], we aligned the sample, the magnet and the shield parallel to the

Beyond Moore’s technologies: operation principles of a superconductor alternative

• Igor I. Soloviev,
• Nikolay V. Klenov,
• Sergey V. Bakurskiy,
• Mikhail Yu. Kupriyanov,
• Alexander L. Gudkov and
• Anatoli S. Sidorenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2689–2710, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.269

The role of ligands in coinage-metal nanoparticles for electronics

• Ioannis Kanelidis and
• Tobias Kraus

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2625–2639, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.263

• reached a conductivity of 2000 S/cm [132]. Conventional drop casting of one size of gold nanoparticles functionalized by a π-conjugated terthiophene resulted in films of hexagonally packed particles. The terthiophene ligands aligned around the assembled particles, enabled face-to-face π–π interactions

Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy of difurylethene-based photochromic single-molecule junctions

• Youngsang Kim,
• Safa G. Bahoosh,
• Dmytro Sysoiev,
• Thomas Huhn,
• Fabian Pauly and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2606–2614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.261

• -dependent transmission still suggests that the single-level toy model is not straightforwardly applicable. Based on the position of the HOMO level and its broadening in the transport calculations, we have nevertheless argued that experimental trends of an effective level that is better aligned with the

Localized growth of carbon nanotubes via lithographic fabrication of metallic deposits

• Fan Tu,
• Martin Drost,
• Imre Szenti,
• Janos Kiss,
• Zoltan Kónya and
• Hubertus Marbach

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2592–2605, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.260

• , for the formation of high-density vertically aligned CNTs (referred to as CNT forests), a thin Al2O3 layer was introduced to improve the CNT yield grown on EBID Fe deposits. The significant increase in the yield can be attributed to the reduced mobility of the Fe deposits on the Al2O3 substrate

Ferrocholesteric–ferronematic transitions induced by shear flow and magnetic field

• Dmitriy V. Makarov,
• Alexander A. Novikov and
• Alexander N. Zakhlevnykh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2552–2561, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.255

• director is aligned at the constant angle φc, which can be found from Equation 12: where hc and uc are the critical values of the field and the velocity gradient at which the ferrocholesteric helix is unwound. Integrating Equation 12, we obtain The possible direction of twisting of the ferrocholesteric

Dynamic behavior of a nematic liquid crystal mixed with CoFe₂O₄ ferromagnetic nanoparticles in a magnetic field

• Emil Petrescu,
• Cristina Cirtoaje and
• Cristina Stan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2467–2473, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.246

• long nanoparticle chains inside the cell. Under the action of magnetic fields, these chains remain obliquely aligned between the support plates. The nematic molecules attached on these chains by strong anchoring forces can not change their orientation under the action of the magnetic field as they do

Increasing the stability of DNA nanostructure templates by atomic layer deposition of Al₂O₃ and its application in imprinting lithography

• Hyojeong Kim,
• Kristin Arbutina,
• Anqin Xu and
• Haitao Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2363–2375, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.236

• nanostructures have also been used as masks. The patterns of 1D DNA nanotubes and 2D DNA arrays were replicated to metal films by metal evaporation onto the DNA nanostructures and subsequent lift-off of the metal films [31]. Aligned DNA molecular bundles became shadow masks for angled metal vapor deposition and

• ]. Although e-beam lithography is capable of reaching resolutions below 10 nm [41], it is difficult to produce the master templates in larger numbers because of its high cost [42][43][44]. In 2015, the aligned patterns of natural salmon milt DNA bundles were first transferred to negative replicas on

Magnetic properties of optimized cobalt nanospheres grown by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) on cantilever tips

• Soraya Sangiao,
• César Magén,
• Darius Mofakhami,
• Grégoire de Loubens and
• José María De Teresa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2106–2115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.210

• aberration-corrected Lorentz mode, with the objective lens switched off and the corrector aligned to compensate the spherical aberration of the Lorentz lens and achieve a spatial resolution of around 1 nm. Electron holograms of ≈20% contrast have been obtained with a biprism excitation of 160 V, an overlap