Hydrothermal-derived carbon as a stabilizing matrix for improved cycling performance of silicon-based anodes for lithium-ion full cells

• Mirco Ruttert,
• Florian Holtstiege,
• Jessica Hüsker,
• Markus Börner,
• Martin Winter and
• Tobias Placke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2381–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.223

• , the VE is lower than before and stabilizes at ≈94% in both cases. The decrease compared to the formation cycles is most likely due to stronger polarization effects of the electrodes at higher currents [8][70]. A high VE indicates a small voltage hysteresis between charge and discharge of the cell

Directional light beams by design from electrically driven elliptical slit antennas

• Shuiyan Cao,
• Eric Le Moal,
• Quanbo Jiang,
• Aurélien Drezet,
• Serge Huant,
• Jean-Paul Hugonin,
• Gérald Dujardin and
• Elizabeth Boer-Duchemin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2361–2371, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.221

• of the system, the emitted beam is a cylindrical vector beam with radial polarization [40]. When the tip is off-center, the emission from different positions along the circular slit is out-of-phase. As previously reported in [40], light beams tilted by up to 10° may be obtained in this way while

• consequences: The SPP-to-light scattering efficiency is the same all along the slit, and the polarization of the scattered light is purely radial (see Figure 9b,c). This is in contrast to the elliptical slit antenna where the distance between the SPP source (located at one focus) and the slit depends on the

• the slit. In addition, the fact that the SPP propagation is not orthogonal to the slit has an effect on the polarization of the scattered light. SPP-to-light scattering at the slit essentially relies on the excitation of surface plasmons that oscillate in the plane of the sample in the direction

Pinning of a ferroelectric Bloch wall at a paraelectric layer

• Vilgelmina Stepkova and
• Jiří Hlinka

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2356–2360, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.220

• , little is known about robustness of the inner polarization, present within the nanoscale thickness of ferroelectric Bloch walls [6][7]. For example, it has not yet been clarified whether such a localized polarization is sustained under the influence of the chemical stoichiometry concentration

• parent cubic lattice of both BaTiO3 and SrTiO3. It is found that a nanometer thin layer of SrTiO3 acts as a pinning loci not only for the Ising wall but also for the Bloch wall. Moreover, these results suggest that such a pinned Bloch wall can loose practically all of its inner polarization (see Figure 2

• ). This result could be possibly used to set or modify the helicity of Bloch walls passing through conveniently placed paraelectric gate layers in future domain-wall-based devices. Results and Discussion The peculiarity of the investigated ferroelectric domain wall is best understood when the polarization

Performance analysis of rigorous coupled-wave analysis and its integration in a coupled modeling approach for optical simulation of complete heterojunction silicon solar cells

• Ziga Lokar,
• Benjamin Lipovsek,
• Marko Topic and
• Janez Krc

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2315–2329, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.216

• electric (TE) and transversal magnetic (TM) polarization components. The RCWA waves can be simply transformed into rays and back, as the phase is not needed when propagating in incoherent parts of the cell. This makes the combination of the methods very suitable to couple, as there is no need for

• additional transformations, unlike the combinations of raytracing with other methods. However, the phase can also be considered in the presented CMA if, e.g., only thin coherent layers would be coupled. One should note that in general, the polarization of a wave with respect to the normal of the interface

• can change from TE to TM or vice versa. This is unlike in (locally) flat interfaces considered with ray optics or TMM, where local TE and TM polarization persist after reflection or refraction. This difference in 3D wave simulations is caused by the diffracted waves, which may not propagate in the

Metal–dielectric hybrid nanoantennas for efficient frequency conversion at the anapole mode

• Valerio F. Gili,
• Lavinia Ghirardini,
• Davide Rocco,
• Giuseppe Marino,
• Ivan Favero,
• Iännis Roland,
• Giovanni Pellegrini,
• Lamberto Duò,
• Marco Finazzi,
• Luca Carletti,
• Andrea Locatelli,
• Aristide Lemaître,
• Dragomir Neshev,
• Costantino De Angelis,
• Giuseppe Leo and
• Michele Celebrano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2306–2314, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.215

• spectrum. In this frame, AlGaAs nanoantennas demonstrated to be extremely efficient sources of second harmonic radiation. In particular, the nonlinear polarization of an optical system pumped at the anapole mode can be potentially boosted, due to both the strong dip in the scattering spectrum and the near

• platforms is almost two orders of magnitude higher than in isolated nanopillars. We also find sizeable THG with an emission yield comparable to that of SHG, which is unexpected since third-order nonlinear processes are commonly negligible in these systems [28][38]. The polarization-dependent optical

• wavelength. To better address this outcome, we have thoroughly analyzed the SHG dependence as a function of the incident polarization as well as the SHG emission patterns for both the hybrid structure and the reference isolated pillar. Figure 5 shows the polar plots of the total collected SH intensity (i.e

Two-dimensional photonic crystals increasing vertical light emission from Si nanocrystal-rich thin layers

• Lukáš Ondič,
• Marian Varga,
• Ivan Pelant,
• Alexander Kromka,
• Karel Hruška and
• Robert G. Elliman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2287–2296, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.213

• as a function of the incident light polarization and the angle of incidence. As the leaky modes manifest themselves in the transmission and reflection spectra as Fano-like resonances, this approach provides a simple way to identify the leaky modes of the structure. Because the simulated leaky

Intrinsic ultrasmall nanoscale silicon turns n-/p-type with SiO₂/Si₃N₄-coating

• Dirk König,
• Daniel Hiller,
• Noël Wilck,
• Birger Berghoff,
• Merlin Müller,
• Sangeeta Thakur,
• Giovanni Di Santo,
• Luca Petaccia,
• Joachim Mayer,
• Sean Smith and
• Joachim Knoch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2255–2264, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.210

• optimized geometries, their electronic structure was calculated again by testing and optimizing the MO-BS wavefunction ensemble with the B3LYP hybrid DF [19][20] and the Gaussian-type 6-31G(d) MO-BS which contains d-polarization functions (B3LYP/6-31G(d)) [21] to describe the strong polar nature of atomic

Light–Matter interactions on the nanoscale

• Mohsen Rahmani and
• Chennupati Jagadish

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2125–2127, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.201

• of applications, including sensing and optical tuning, dispersion engineering and polarization manipulation [14]. Recently, it has been demonstrated that light–matter interactions at the nanoscale can even be induced via sub-nanometer materials [15][16], for example, graphene [17]. The interaction of

High-throughput synthesis of modified Fresnel zone plate arrays via ion beam lithography

• Kahraman Keskinbora,
• Umut Tunca Sanli,
• Margarita Baluktsian,
• Corinne Grévent,
• Markus Weigand and
• Gisela Schütz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2049–2056, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.194

• including the stage travel and calculation overhead. The cross-shaped reflected intensity pattern seen in all the FZPs in Figure 4b is a polarized bright-field optical microscope image and a sign of overall high quality [46]. The cross shape rotates as the polarization is varied between 0° and 90°. The dark

Electromigrated electrical optical antennas for transducing electrons and photons at the nanoscale

• Arindam Dasgupta,
• Mickaël Buret,
• Nicolas Cazier,
• Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil,
• Reinaldo Chacon,
• Kamal Hammani,
• Jean-Claude Weeber,
• Juan Arocas,
• Laurent Markey,
• Gérard Colas des Francs,
• Alexander Uskov,
• Igor Smetanin and
• Alexandre Bouhelier

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1964–1976, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.187

• representation isolates two extreme cases of bias polarization: and separated by a minimum in the plot indicating the cross-over between the transport regimes. The effective barrier height of the electrodes may be directly inferred from this minimum, commonly referred to as the transition voltage Vt. The

Increasing the performance of a superconducting spin valve using a Heusler alloy

• Andrey A. Kamashev,
• Aidar A. Validov,
• Joachim Schumann,
• Vladislav Kataev,
• Bernd Büchner,
• Yakov V. Fominov and
• Ilgiz A. Garifullin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1764–1769, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.167

• polarization of the conduction band. The heterostructures demonstrate a significant superconducting spin-valve effect, i.e., a complete switching on and off of the superconducting current flowing through the system by manipulating the mutual orientations of the magnetization of the F1 and F2 layers. The

• /Pb has been investigated in detail with the focus on the S/F proximity effect very recently. It was shown [25] that the degree of the spin polarization of the conduction band of the HA film amounts to 30% for the films prepared at a particular substrate temperature of Tsub = 300 K during the growth

• of the HA layer and to 70% at Tsub = 600 K. In the AFM/F1/N1/F2/N2/S structure it would be advantageous to achieve a penetration depth of the Cooper pairs into F2 ferromagnetic layer as large as possible. This means that the spin polarization of the conduction band should be small. To fulfill this

Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes coated with zinc oxide nanoparticles as sulfur encapsulator for high-performance lithium/sulfur batteries

• Yan Zhao,
• Zhengjun Liu,
• Liancheng Sun,
• Yongguang Zhang,
• Yuting Feng,
• Xin Wang,
• Indira Kurmanbayeva and
• Zhumabay Bakenov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1677–1685, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.159

• plateaus with increasing rate. More importantly, it can be observed that there is only a small polarization of the electrode, which demonstrates highly reversible features of Li ion insertion/deletion in the S/ZnO@NCNT composite at various cycling rates. Table 1 compares the performance data reported for

Josephson effect in junctions of conventional and topological superconductors

• Alex Zazunov,
• Albert Iks,
• Miguel Alvarado,
• Alfredo Levy Yeyati and
• Reinhold Egger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1659–1676, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.158

• modeled by a Kitaev chain, the supercurrent vanishes identically [31]. This supercurrent blockade can be traced back to the different (s/p-wave) pairing symmetries for the S/TS leads, together with the fact that MBSs have a definite spin polarization. For an early study of Josephson currents between

• by two TS wires and one S lead, crossed Andreev reflections allow for the nonlocal splitting of Cooper pairs in the S electrode involving both TS wires (or the reverse process). In this way, an equilibrium supercurrent will be generated unless the MBS spin polarization axes of both TS wires are

• ] then rule out a supercurrent for TS wires in the deep topological regime. We show below that unless B is inadvertently aligned with the MBS spin polarization axis, spin mixing will indeed generate a supercurrent. The S/TS leads are coupled to the QD via a tunneling Hamiltonian [70], where ψσ and ψ are

Free-radical gases on two-dimensional transition-metal disulfides (XS₂, X = Mo/W): robust half-metallicity for efficient nitrogen oxide sensors

• Chunmei Zhang,
• Yalong Jiao,
• Fengxian Ma,
• Sri Kasi Matta,
• Steven Bottle and
• Aijun Du

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1641–1646, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.156

• (Figure S3a–d; Supporting Information File 1), we conclude that the N and O p-orbitals result in absolute spin polarization. In the WS2 monolayer with adsorbed NO2, no apparent DOS peaks are present around the Fermi level (Figure 2f). The spatial magnetic charge distribution analysis suggests that all the

• spin polarization (Figure S3c,d; Supporting Information File 1) and the dominant contribution to the HOMO and the LUMO at the Fermi level originates from the p-orbitals of N and O gas atoms (Figure S3a,b; Supporting Information File 1). Therefore, only the p-orbitals of N and O atoms are plotted in

Solid-state Stern–Gerlach spin splitter for magnetic field sensing, spintronics, and quantum computing

• Kristofer Björnson and
• Annica M. Black-Schaffer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1558–1563, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.147

• (1)-AB to SU(2)-AB. Results Setup Consider the conceptual setup in Figure 1. The circular channel around the hole forms an edge of the 2D TI and therefore hosts helical edge states. We assume for simplicity that the spin-polarization axis is perpendicular to the plane of the TI. The Hamiltonian

• only interested in forward propagation of up spins along one edge, and down spins along the other, it is possible to add additional floating ferromagnetic leads with opposite spin polarization to the forward propagating modes to the two edges. This allows for reflected spins to escape without affecting

• reason the middle spin splitter is tilted at an angle π/2 is to make its edge states have their spin-polarization perpendicular to those of the other two. In practice it would therefore be possible to have all three devices in the same plane, if it is constructed out of two different types of 2D TIs with

Photoluminescence of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots in nematic liquid crystals in electric fields

• Margarita A. Kurochkina,
• Elena A. Konshina and
• Daria Khmelevskaia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1544–1549, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.145

• , respectively. The orientation of the LC after filling the cells was checked using an optical polarization microscope. To obtain the absorption spectra we have used a UV-3600 spectrophotometer (Shimadzu, Japan). To study the QD luminescence a confocal laser scanning microscope LSM 710 (Cаrl Zeiss, Germany) with

Optical near-field mapping of plasmonic nanostructures prepared by nanosphere lithography

• Gitanjali Kolhatkar,
• Alexandre Merlen,
• Jiawei Zhang,
• Chahinez Dab,
• Gregory Q. Wallace,
• François Lagugné-Labarthet and
• Andreas Ruediger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1536–1543, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.144

• periodicity of ≈3 µm−1 in the Fourier (2D reciprocal) space. The anisotropy of this pattern is also reflected in the 2D fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the optical image, presented in Figure 1c. In addition, those patterns vary with the polarization, and with the laser focus. Thus, these oscillation patterns

• and post-data treatment is imperative to retrieve the near-field information. We used this protocol to study the optical near-field properties of gold nanotriangle arrays with two different laser wavelengths of 632.8 nm and 532.1 nm, using the same pixel size (20 nm) and a p-polarization, as presented

• resolution. It is worthwhile mentioning that the cut-off of the filtering process ultimately determines the spatial resolution: a compromise needs to be found to remove the high frequency noise without removing the near-field signal as noticed above. Surprisingly, no polarization effect was observed. Our

Cathodoluminescence as a probe of the optical properties of resonant apertures in a metallic film

• Kalpana Singh,
• Evgeniy Panchenko,
• Babak Nasr,
• Amelia Liu,
• Lukas Wesemann,
• Timothy J. Davis and
• Ann Roberts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1491–1500, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.140

• space and time [38], and hence, an electron beam can induce a time-varying polarization in an adjacent material leading to optical excitation. Optical resonances can be probed by studying either the loss in the energy of the electrons (through electron energy loss spectroscopy, EELS) [38][39] or the

Excitation of nonradiating magnetic anapole states with azimuthally polarized vector beams

• Aristeidis G. Lamprianidis and
• Andrey E. Miroshnichenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1478–1490, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.139

• experimentally [24][32]. It turns out, that if we change the polarization from radial to azimuthal, then, only magnetic harmonics will be present. Thus, using such an illumination scheme will be ideal to test the possibility of the magnetic anapole excitation. An excited magnetic anapole is expected to have

Tailoring polarization and magnetization of absorbing terahertz metamaterials using a cut-wire sandwich structure

• Hadi Teguh Yudistira,
• Shuo Liu,
• Tie Jun Cui and
• Han Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1437–1447, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.136

• this work, we designed, fabricated and characterized a cut-wire sandwich device capable of tailoring the polarization and magnetization separately, thereby providing a promising recipe for achieving specific application objectives, such as a high-performance absorber. Accumulated charges effectively

• provided the polarization at the edge of cut-wires, and the surface current density on the cut-wires at top and bottom layers effectively generated the magnetization. By controlling and optimizing the geometrical configurations of the entire sandwich device (without lateral misalignment), the impedance

• other frequency ranges because polarization and magnetization can now be selectively controlled in a straightforward manner. Keywords: absorber; cut-wire; metamaterial; terahertz; Introduction The terahertz spectrum is located between the infrared and microwave spectrum. This part of the spectrum has

Electrostatically actuated encased cantilevers

• Benoit X. E. Desbiolles,
• Gabriela Furlan,
• Adam M. Schwartzberg,
• Paul D. Ashby and
• Dominik Ziegler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1381–1389, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.130

• frequency of the electrical drive signal matches the mechanical resonance frequency of the cantilever. In sub-harmonic mode, the excitation applies an ac drive voltage at half of the mechanical resonance frequency which results in more stable oscillation unaffected by fluctuations of polarization or

Interplay between pairing and correlations in spin-polarized bound states

• Szczepan Głodzik,
• Aksel Kobiałka,
• Anna Gorczyca-Goraj,
• Andrzej Ptok,
• Grzegorz Górski,
• Maciej M. Maśka and
• Tadeusz Domański

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1370–1380, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.129

• and interactions. We explore the influence of the spin–orbit coupling on energies, polarization and spatial patterns of the bound (Yu–Shiba–Rusinov) states of magnetic impurities in a two-dimensional square lattice. We also address the peculiar bound states in the proximitized Rashba chain, resembling

• the Majorana quasiparticles, focusing on their magnetic polarization that has been recently reported by S. Jeon et al. (Science 2017, 358, 772). Finally, we study leakage of these polarized Majorana quasiparticles into side-attached nanoscopic regions and confront them with the subgap Kondo effect

• pairing driven by the proximity effect [4][5]. Cooper pairs easily penetrate the nanoscopic impurities, inducing the bound (Yu–Shiba–Rusinov) states that manifest the local pairing in coexistence with magnetic polarization. Such bound states have been observed in various systems [6][7][8][9][10][11][12

New 2D graphene hybrid composites as an effective base element of optical nanodevices

• Olga E. Glukhova,
• Igor S. Nefedov,
• Alexander S. Shalin and
• Мichael М. Slepchenkov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1321–1327, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.125

• and z < 0, respectively, n is a normal vector to the surface. In future, we intend to solve the boundary-value problem for the two separate cases of the polarization of the incident radiation, either parallel to the plane of the incident radiation (p-polarization) or normal (s-polarization). A well

• -polarization where Z0 is defined for the p-polarized wave as Z0 = Ex/Hy = η·cosθ, and for the s-polarized wave as Z0 = −Ey/Hy = η/cosθ, where θ is the angle of incidence η = 120π Ω is the input impedance of vacuum. Taking into account expressions for the reflection and transmission coefficients, is it possible

• spectra are similar with only minor changes. The calculation results of the absorption of electromagnetic waves of the CNT–graphene hybrid nanocomposite are presented in Figure 5 and Figure 6. These figures show two cases of the polarization for different topological models of the hybrid nanocomposite

Formation and development of nanometer-sized cybotactic clusters in bent-core nematic liquid crystalline compounds

• Yuri P. Panarin,
• Sithara P. Sreenilayam,
• Jagdish K. Vij,
• Anne Lehmann and
• Carsten Tschierske

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1288–1296, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.121

• are members of a homologous series of 4-cyanoresorcinol. The molecular structure and the phase sequence of the compounds are shown in Figure 1. The first compound (BCN66) with a large flexoelectric polarization [52] is a member of the homologue series consisting of a bent core of five aromatic rings

Surface characterization of nanoparticles using near-field light scattering

• Eunsoo Yoo,
• Yizhong Liu,
• Chukwuazam A. Nwasike,
• Sebastian R. Freeman,
• Brian C. DiPaolo,
• Bernardo Cordovez and
• Amber L. Doiron

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1228–1238, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.114

• output edge where transmitted light is collected by a photodetector. Three polarization-maintaining optical fibers are supported by a silicon v-groove array and are optically aligned to the three waveguides permanently bonded to the chips. Each chip has two through-holes for fluidic access. Fluid lines