From lithium to sodium: cell chemistry of room temperature sodium–air and sodium–sulfur batteries

• Philipp Adelhelm,
• Pascal Hartmann,
• Conrad L. Bender,
• Martin Busche,
• Christine Eufinger and
• Juergen Janek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1016–1055, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.105

Characterization of nanostructured ZnO thin films deposited through vacuum evaporation

• Jose Alberto Alvarado,
• Arturo Maldonado,
• Héctor Juarez,
• Mauricio Pacio and
• Rene Perez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 971–975, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.100

• decomposed into two or three smaller particles that migrate to the substrate. When this particle reaches the substrate, it lacks surface energy to be deposited firmly and has a C-axis orientation growth. However, when the surface energy is activated from an external source, it gives the system a rapid

Electron-stimulated purification of platinum nanostructures grown via focused electron beam induced deposition

• Brett B. Lewis,
• Michael G. Stanford,
• Jason D. Fowlkes,
• Kevin Lester,
• Harald Plank and
• Philip D. Rack

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 907–918, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.94

• concentration is believed to be localized near the Pt–PtCx interface due to limited diffusion and trapping at Pt nanoparticles and the purification front, we compare in Figure 4c the normalized purification rate (normalized to 5 keV and adjusted for different currents) from Figure 4a and the near surface energy

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

• upper layer is essentially parallel to the bottom plane. It is known that the minimal value of the crystal formation and surface energy is obtained when a crystal plane grows on a substrate of the same crystal structure. As the crystal structure of both of Cu and Cu2O are cubic and the moiré patterns

• a drive to decrease the surface energy of the system or differences in the atomic sizes of the component materials. In the case of the Cu–Si system, the difference in covalent radius between Cu (132 pm) and Si (111 pm) is insignificant and thus size effects are not considered relevant for this

• 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

Protein corona – from molecular adsorption to physiological complexity

• Lennart Treuel,
• Dominic Docter,
• Michael Maskos and
• Roland H. Stauber

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 857–873, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.88

• NP. The effect of changing surface energy or surface restructuring is well-known from the field of catalysis [17][18][19][20][21] but its implications for the biological behavior of NPs remains somewhat elusive. We note that the macromolecular nature of the proteins constituting the corona requires a

Capillary and van der Waals interactions on CaF₂ crystals from amplitude modulation AFM force reconstruction profiles under ambient conditions

• Annalisa Calò,
• Oriol Vidal Robles,
• Sergio Santos and
• Albert Verdaguer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 809–819, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.84

• long range force corresponding to the capillary interaction FCAP. FCAP is written as: where γ is the surface energy and X is the average contact coefficient [3][14]. Equations 7, 8 and 9 have also been included. The resulting force profile is shown in Figure 3b. For distances d < don hysteresis has

In situ observation of biotite (001) surface dissolution at pH 1 and 9.5 by advanced optical microscopy

• Chiara Cappelli,
• Daniel Lamarca-Irisarri,
• Jordi Camas,
• F. Javier Huertas and
• Alexander E. S. Van Driessche

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 665–673, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.67

• the existence of a surface energy distribution. In agreement with the above consideration the variability of biotite reactivity is an intrinsic factor of its crystalline anisotropy, i.e., surface energy variance, and thermodynamic parameters, such as activation energy, are not representative of the

Entropy effects in the collective dynamic behavior of alkyl monolayers tethered to Si(111)

• Christian Godet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 583–594, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.60

• surface chemistry, surface energy, biocompatibility, friction, corrosion, liquid chromatography, interfacial interactions and electronic transport [1][2][3][4][5][6]. More recent studies have been focused on the functionalization of nanostructures. However, in spite of a large number of experimental and

Dynamic force microscopy simulator (dForce): A tool for planning and understanding tapping and bimodal AFM experiments

• Horacio V. Guzman,
• Pablo D. Garcia and
• Ricardo Garcia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 369–379, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.36

• stiff and small contacts with low adhesion forces. The DMT model [47] considers an elastic term given by Hertz contact mechanics as and an adhesion force that acts outside the contact area given by where γ is the sample surface energy. Johnson–Kendall–Roberts contact mechanics (JKR) The JKR model is

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

• Substances”, J. Willard Gibbs concluded that a given quantity of matter will attain a shape such that the total surface energy is minimal [7]. For perfect crystalline solids, atomic planes are members of a countable set characterized by integer Miller indexes (hkl). The shape of a crystalline solid will

• therefore be a polyhedron for which only faces parallel to (hkl) planes are allowed. It is only reasonable to assume that faces with a relatively low surface energy will dominate the equilibrium shape. Several decades later, mineralogist Georg Wulff suggested [8] that the polyhedron that corresponds to the

• lowest surface energy of a crystalline substance can be constructed in the following way (the so-called Wulff construction): One chooses a constant c, and a Cartesian set of axes. Starting from the origin, O, one draws a plane that is normal to the [hkl] vector and has a distance dhkl = c·γhkl from O

Strain distribution due to surface domains: a self-consistent approach with respect to surface elasticity

• Javier Fuhr and
• Pierre Müller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 321–326, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.30

• volume V0 but without any surface. In these expressions are the bulk stress components and Cijkl the bulk elastic constant. The so-defined surface quantities depend on a typical length scale at which surface effects are disentangled from bulk effects. Actually, in surface energy calculations, this

• length is unambiguoulsy determined by a Gibbs dividing surface construction [14]. Surface stress and surface elastic constants values can thus be calculated from strain derivatives of the well-defined surface energy quantity [11]. In contrast to surface energy density and bulk elastic constants, surface

Oxygen-plasma-modified biomimetic nanofibrous scaffolds for enhanced compatibility of cardiovascular implants

• Anna Maria Pappa,
• Varvara Karagkiozaki,
• Silke Krol,
• Spyros Kassavetis,
• Dimitris Konstantinou,
• Charalampos Pitsalidis,
• Lazaros Tzounis,
• Nikos Pliatsikas and
• Stergios Logothetidis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 254–262, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.24

• functional groups are created. This leads to an increase in the polarity and the surface energy, resulting in a roughened topography. Higher plasma power (P = 40 W) significantly decreased Ra resulting into smoother nanofibrous surfaces compared to the untreated samples, due to the partial polymer melting

• highly porous structures. Thus, in our case, contact angle measurements are not a reliable technique to gain results concerning the wettability and the surface energy of each system independently [28]. In order to determine the chemical composition of the O2-plasma-treated samples as well as the chemical

• approach, to introduce oxygen-containing groups onto the surface of a polymer. This leads to an increase in the surface energy of the treated material and therefore enhances its hydrophilic behavior. During this process, the chemical alterations that are induced as a result of the radical reactions between

Morphology, structural properties and reducibility of size-selected CeO_2−x nanoparticle films

• Maria Chiara Spadaro,
• Sergio D’Addato,
• Gabriele Gasperi,
• Francesco Benedetti,
• Paola Luches,
• Vincenzo Grillo,
• Giovanni Bertoni and
• Sergio Valeri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 60–67, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.7

• the sample exhibit single crystalline structure (cubic CeO2, space group 225, Fm−3m), exposing frequently {111}, {220} and {100} facets, as evidenced in Figure 3a and Figure 3b. The (111) surface is indeed the most stable for cerium dioxide [1] and the (220) has the next lowest surface energy; at

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

• ]. Furthermore, the normal force of capillary bridges between solid objects was investigated [19]. Here, we create a meniscus from a flat, water surface until rupture occurs in order to determine the adhesion force using a simple energetic approach: the first derivative of the added surface energy of the

• 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

Aquatic versus terrestrial attachment: Water makes a difference

• Petra Ditsche and
• Adam P. Summers

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2424–2439, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.252

• surface texture, from smooth to very rough and smooth to hairy or covered with waxes [18][19]. Also the surface energy and with it the wettability of surfaces as well as the elasticity of the substrates are important properties, which can influence attachment [17]. Another important point needs to be

• Table 4 and Table 5. Very large attachment forces are generated by glue adhesion and suction. However, as the given values have been determined under very different conditions (substrates of different material, surface energy, roughness and elasticity; different measurement methods) the values are hard

• friction will depend on properties of the secretion, such as surface energy and viscosity. Some monolayer films separating two surfaces can also decrease friction dramatically when the surfaces are immersed under water [60]. Under certain conditions such as an insect stepping into a water drop or a water

Si/Ge intermixing during Ge Stranski–Krastanov growth

• Alain Portavoce,
• Khalid Hoummada,
• Antoine Ronda,
• Dominique Mangelinck and
• Isabelle Berbezier

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2374–2382, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.246

• minimization of the surface energy, the strain energy, the alloy mixing energy and the configurational entropy [22]. In the case of a pure Ge dome island (no intermixing with Si), the stress was shown to be compressive in the interior of the island, and tensile at the edges of the island [34]. Thus, in the

• case of island formation close to equilibrium, the Si-rich core is attributed to the compressive conditions prevailing in the island core, and the Ge-rich outer shell is attributed to the lower surface energy of Ge and the tensile conditions prevailing at the island edges. From a kinetic point of view

Liquid-phase exfoliated graphene: functionalization, characterization, and applications

• Mildred Quintana,
• Jesús Iván Tapia and
• Maurizio Prato

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2328–2338, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.242

• at exfoliating graphite only if the net energetic cost of the process is very small. The enthalpy of mixing depends on the affinity between graphene layers and solvent molecules. Then, in order to obtain high yields of exfoliated graphite, the surface energy of the solvent must compete with the

• surface energy of graphite (≈70–80 mJ∙m−2). This relatively high surface energy results in solvents with high boiling points and high surface tensions, for example, N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-methyl-1,2-pyrrolidone (NMP), which are well-known as good dispersing solvents for carbon nanostructures

Hybrid spin-crossover nanostructures

• Carlos M. Quintero,
• Gautier Félix,
• Iurii Suleimanov,
• José Sánchez Costa,
• Gábor Molnár,
• Lionel Salmon,
• William Nicolazzi and
• Azzedine Bousseksou

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2230–2239, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.232

• ratio. The modulation of the spin-crossover behavior in nanoparticles can be realized by modification of the surface energy terms in the HS and LS states. This energy depends on two different parameters: the energy per surface, γ, and the area of the particle, A. The energy per surface term depends on

Nanometer-resolved mechanical properties around GaN crystal surface steps

• Jörg Buchwald,
• Marina Sarmanova,
• Bernd Rauschenbach and
• Stefan G. Mayr

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2164–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.225

• edge. This fact can be expressed by considering the surface stress, which is the variation of the total surface energy as a function of the strain, ε: where A0 is the surface area before deformation and γ the surface energy. Therefore, the local stresses σij(yp) which are acting on the boundaries of dV

Dissipation signals due to lateral tip oscillations in FM-AFM

• Michael Klocke and
• Dietrich E. Wolf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2048–2057, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.213

• microscopy. The coupling is induced by the interaction between tip and surface. Energy is transferred from the normal to the lateral excitation, which can be detected as damping of the cantilever oscillation. However, energy can be transferred back into the normal oscillation, if not dissipated by the

Synthesis of Pt nanoparticles and their burrowing into Si due to synergistic effects of ion beam energy losses

• Pravin Kumar,
• Udai Bhan Singh,
• Kedar Mal,
• Sunil Ojha,
• Indra Sulania,
• Dinakar Kanjilal,
• Dinesh Singh and
• Vidya Nand Singh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1864–1872, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.197

• been employed [20]. The ion irradiation of thin metallic films deposited on a suitable substrate (with lower surface energy) leads to the synthesis of metal NPs embedded into the substrate. The energy losses of the ions (not the ion itself) are mainly responsible for the resulting nano-structuring. The

• -organized cobalt clusters in a gold substrate upon thermal activation was reported by Padovani et al. [27]. When the surface energy of the metallic film is larger than that of the substrate, then surface nano-structuring is due to ion-induced sputtering of the film followed by the dewetting of metallic

• melting of islands (melting point of Pt is ≈1768 K). The molten Pt islands take a spherical shape to minimize their surface energy (dewetting). The surface energies of Pt and silicon are 2.49 and 1.51 J/m2, respectively. There could be electronic sputtering of these molten Pt islands giving rise to a

Silicon and germanium nanocrystals: properties and characterization

• Ivana Capan,
• Alexandra Carvalho and
• José Coutinho

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1787–1794, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.189

• properties: The NC surface is one of the most important variables in the engineering of its shape, intrinsic properties and stability in air and interaction with solvents and other substances. For nanoparticles with a clean surface or with a hydrogen-covered surface, the orientation dependence of the surface

• energy, as well as edge- and corner-energies (for less than 104 atoms) determine the shape of the NCs grown under near-equilibrium quasi-static conditions. It has been found that diamond NCs are most stable in a truncated octahedral structure, but Si and Ge NCs are stable in a nearly-spherical geometry

Equilibrium states and stability of pre-tensioned adhesive tapes

• Carmine Putignano,
• Luciano Afferrante,
• Luigi Mangialardi and
• Giuseppe Carbone

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1725–1731, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.182

• the elastic modulus of the tape and on the surface energy of adhesion. Vice versa, in the unstable region, depending on the initial conditions of the system, the tape can evolve towards a state of complete detachment or fail before reaching a state of equilibrium with complete adhesion. We find that

• the presence of pre-tension in the tape does not modify the stability behavior of the system, but significantly affects the pull-off force which can be sustained by the tape before complete detachment. Moreover, above a critical value of the pre-tension, which depends on the surface energy of adhesion

Non-covalent and reversible functionalization of carbon nanotubes

• Antonello Di Crescenzo,
• Valeria Ettorre and
• Antonella Fontana

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1675–1690, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.178

• features of the interface between CNTs and the bulk medium providing additional repulsive forces, either electrostatic or steric, and decreasing the surface energy. In 1997 Bonard et al. [59] purified CNTs from graphitic nanoparticles by sonicating CNTs for a few minutes in a 1% aqueous solution of an

Hydrophobic interaction governs unspecific adhesion of staphylococci: a single cell force spectroscopy study

• Nicolas Thewes,
• Peter Loskill,
• Philipp Jung,
• Henrik Peisker,
• Markus Bischoff,
• Mathias Herrmann and
• Karin Jacobs

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1501–1512, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.163

• , attractive forces can already be recorded, an indication of the involvement of long-ranged forces. Yet, comparing the surfaces of different surface energy, our results corroborate the model that large, bacterial cell wall proteins are responsible for adhesion, and that their interplay with the short-ranged

• , and to clarify the range of the attractive interaction of the cells to surfaces. We use abiotic surfaces in order to rule out effects due to specific interactions and to concentrate on the unspecific interactions of S. carnosus to surfaces of variable surface energy. As a unique feature of our study

• between, the surface energy of the adhesion partner (the hydrophilic surface) was reduced by a factor of three (c.f. Table 1). Hence, as the shape of the force/distance curves is that robust (surviving 150 contact events and surviving even a change of the type of substrate), these results already