Parylene C as a versatile dielectric material for organic field-effect transistors

• Tomasz Marszalek,
• Maciej Gazicki-Lipman and
• Jacek Ulanski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1532–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.155

• polymer is low. It is known that Parylene C films deposited at high pressure and high deposition rate are rough and have non-uniform and poor dielectric properties. A small increase of the deposition rate from 0.015 to 0.08 g/min results in a growth of the root-mean-square surface roughness from 5.78 to

• 9.53 nm [29]. The same effect of an increasing roughness with increasing deposition rate was observed when various film thicknesses were compared (Figure 2) [30]. Therefore, when increasing the sublimation rate, one should be aware of the resulting increase of the film surface roughness. Xylylene

• has on the performance of the single-crystal transistor. Of two crystalline forms of dithiophene-tetrathiafulvalene, the monoclinic alpha polymorph substantially outperformed the hexagonal beta polymorph [45]. The influence of the surface roughness of a dielectric film on the molecular arrangement of

The effect of the electrical double layer on hydrodynamic lubrication: a non-monotonic trend with increasing zeta potential

• Dalei Jing,
• Yunlu Pan and
• Xiaoming Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1515–1522, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.152

• interface). Li [9] theoretically studied the combined roles of EDL and surface roughness on the hydrodynamic lubrication. Huang and his colleagues [8][10][13] systematically studied the effects of EDL on the hydrodynamic lubrication or elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication, where the effect of zeta potential was

Growth, structure and stability of sputter-deposited MoS₂ thin films

• Reinhard Kaindl,
• Bernhard C. Bayer,
• Roland Resel,
• Thomas Müller,
• Viera Skakalova,
• Gerlinde Habler,
• Rainer Abart,
• Alexey S. Cherevan,
• Dominik Eder,
• Maxime Blatter,
• Fabian Fischer,
• Jannik C. Meyer,
• Dmitry K. Polyushkin and
• Wolfgang Waldhauser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1115–1126, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.113

• secondary electron scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image. This observation is confirmed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) images and a low AFM-derived root-mean-squared (RMS) surface roughness of ≈0.8 nm. No voids are detected in the films, indicating a compact morphology. At 400 °C deposition temperature

• the film surface appears structured in nanometer-sized grains, as visible both in the SEM and AFM images. Correspondingly, the granular surface exhibits a much higher RMS surface roughness of ≈3.4 nm. The formation of smooth MoS2 films during RT PVD compared to a nano-grained rougher surface for 400

• ]. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) measurements provide further insights into the properties of our MoS2 films. Figure 2 and Table 1 give XRR-patterns and resulting data on film thickness, surface roughness and mass density of the two films (≈10 nm) deposited at RT and 400 °C, respectively. The thickness

The integration of graphene into microelectronic devices

• Guenther Ruhl,
• Sebastian Wittmann,
• Matthias Koenig and
• Daniel Neumaier

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1056–1064, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.107

• compressive strain of approximately −0.1% [49]. On epitaxial germanium(001) with a higher surface roughness there is a higher compressive strain in the range between −0.37% and −0.25% [33]. Thus, it is crucial to provide substrates as smooth as possible for graphene integration. 4 Encapsulation In order to

Assembly of metallic nanoparticle arrays on glass via nanoimprinting and thin-film dewetting

• Sun-Kyu Lee,
• Sori Hwang,
• Yoon-Kee Kim and
• Yong-Jun Oh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1049–1055, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.106

• surface roughness relative to the film thickness or is not continuous, the film will break up into multiple fine particles clustered around the pits and mesas. This is the case of Figure 6a,b for the 8 nm thick Ag film on the imprinted sol–gel silica. The size uniformity of the assembled metal particles

Near-field surface plasmon field enhancement induced by rippled surfaces

• Mario D’Acunto,
• Francesco Fuso,
• Ruggero Micheletto,
• Makoto Naruse,
• Francesco Tantussi and
• Maria Allegrini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 956–967, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.97

• . Modeling Influence of surface roughness on interference patterns of surface plasmons: near-field optical properties The need to include the surface roughness into numerical models for plasmonic systems restricts the choice of numerical near-field methods [25][26][27][28]. Commonly recognized methods to

Vapor-phase-synthesized fluoroacrylate polymer thin films: thermal stability and structural properties

• Paul Christian and
• Anna Maria Coclite

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 933–942, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.95

• predominantly affects the water contact angle of the PFDA homopolymer. A decrease of the WCA to 121 ± 1° results, while the cross-linked polymers show little to no change, independent of the degree of cross-linking. In Figure 4b, the root mean square surface roughness, σRMS, of the full-scale AFM micrographs

• formation of cracks, a pronounced decrease in the σRMS value was observed for the PFDA homopolymer, resulting in a much smoother film. This suggests that the initial WCA of the p-PFDA films stems in fact from a combination of hydrophobicity by the perfluorinated groups and the high surface roughness present

• -treated (b) p-PFDA films with different degrees of EGDMA cross-linking. The data are represented on individual color scales for clarity. Water contact angle (WCA) (a) and root mean square surface roughness (σRMS) (b) of p-PFDA films with different degrees of EGDMA cross-linking, as determined by the

Synthesis of coaxial nanotubes of polyaniline and poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) by oxidative/initiated chemical vapor deposition

• Alper Balkan,
• Efe Armagan and
• Gozde Ozaydin Ince

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 872–882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.89

• degree of crystallinity [47]. The surface morphology of the PANI thin films was examined by using AFM analysis (Figure 4). The RMS surface roughness of the as-deposited thin films of 350 nm thickness was measured as 30 nm on a flat substrate, and the roughness increased with film thickness. When the

• annealing temperature was increased, the RMS roughness of the PANI thin films decreased. The decrease in surface roughness with increasing temperatures can be explained by the rearrangement of amorphous part of polymer chains and formation of new crystalline regions on the surface that reduce the

• -coated glass slides in order to find the band gap of fabricated PANI and to confirm the electrical conductivity of the film by calculating band-transition energies. Atomic force microscopy (Bruker Multimode 8, ScanAsyst) was used to acquire topography and surface roughness of as-deposited and annealed

Surface improvement of organic photoresists using a near-field-dependent etching method

• Felix J. Brandenburg,
• Tomohiro Okamoto,
• Hiroshi Saito,
• Benjamin Leuschel,
• Olivier Soppera and
• Takashi Yatsui

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 784–788, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.81

• 68057, France 10.3762/bjnano.8.81 Abstract Surface flattening techniques are extremely important for the development of future electrical and/or optical devices because carrier-scattering losses due to surface roughness severely limit the performance of nanoscale devices. To address the problem, we

• reduction of the surface roughness was observed as compared to the 325 nm light. These results indicate that even wavelengths above 325 nm can cause surface roughness improvements without notably changing the structure of the photoresist. Keywords: near-field etching; organic photoresists; surface

• improvement; wavelength dependence; Introduction As the structures fabricated in the field of semiconductors has reached below 10 nm [1], and the pursuit of ever smaller node sizes continues, the impact of the surface roughness (SR) becomes increasingly critical [2]. In attempts to downscale the minimum

Anodization-based process for the fabrication of all niobium nitride Josephson junction structures

• Massimiliano Lucci,
• Ivano Ottaviani,
• Matteo Cirillo,
• Fabio De Matteis,
• Roberto Francini,
• Vittorio Merlo and
• Ivan Davoli

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 539–546, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.58

• range of 300–1000 nm, connected to the vacuum chamber by means of an optical fibre pointing directly into the plasma. The measurements of hardness, reduced modulus and surface roughness have been performed by Nano Test Micro Materials Ltd., using a diamond Berkovich tip. Results and Discussion NbN films

Thin SnO_x films for surface plasmon resonance enhanced ellipsometric gas sensing (SPREE)

• Daniel Fischer,
• Andreas Hertwig,
• Uwe Beck,
• Volkmar Lohse,
• Detlef Negendank,
• Martin Kormunda and
• Norbert Esser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 522–529, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.56

• means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transimission electron mircoscopy (TEM) measurements. These measurements are reported in [18][19]. It was found that the intended layer structure (glass-gold-SnOx) was achieved and the surface roughness is low (root mean square average of height deviation Rq

Impact of air exposure and annealing on the chemical and electronic properties of the surface of SnO₂ nanolayers deposited by rheotaxial growth and vacuum oxidation

• Monika Kwoka and
• Maciej Krzywiecki

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 514–521, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.55

• the z-scanning stage. No other corrections to the images were made. For quantitative topography analysis the Gwyddion® software was also used. As the measurement of surface roughness, the root mean square (RMS) of roughness was quantified, where the root mean deviation from a plane was analyzed

Advances in the fabrication of graphene transistors on flexible substrates

• Gabriele Fisichella,
• Stella Lo Verso,
• Silvestra Di Marco,
• Vincenzo Vinciguerra,
• Emanuela Schilirò,
• Salvatore Di Franco,
• Raffaella Lo Nigro,
• Fabrizio Roccaforte,
• Amaia Zurutuza,
• Alba Centeno,
• Sebastiano Ravesi and
• Filippo Giannazzo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 467–474, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.50

• dielectric thickness. The Al-coated Si wafer was prepared by depositing a 200 nm thick Al film by RF reactive sputtering with a surface roughness (measured by AFM, image not reported) of about 4.3 nm. The RMS roughness values obtained for both the LT Al2O3 (Figure 1c, left) and the ST Al2O3 (Figure 1c, right

• ) were 4.20 nm and 4.49 nm, respectively, that is, very similar to the starting Al surface roughness. The Al/Al2O3 stack was exploited for a mercury probe measurement of the dielectric capacitance. In particular, a metal–insulator–metal capacitor (MIM) is defined by the Al/Al2O3 stack from one side and

Role of oxygen in wetting of copper nanoparticles on silicon surfaces at elevated temperature

• Tapas Ghosh and
• Biswarup Satpati

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 425–433, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.45

• galvanic displacement reaction proceeds easily. This dissolution of Si in water from the surface as SiF62− increases the Si surface roughness during the deposition. In several studies, copper oxide on different substrates have been grown by the direct thermal oxidation of Cu. Pure copper oxide has been

Biological and biomimetic materials and surfaces

• Stanislav Gorb and
• Thomas Speck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 403–407, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.42

• area and thereby diminish the effectiveness of the biological adhesive system. In the paper by Crawford et al. [20], the authors experimentally tested the effect of surface roughness on the adhesive ability of the tree frog Litoria caerulea. They demonstrated that at small scale roughness, frog pad

Influence of hydrofluoric acid treatment on electroless deposition of Au clusters

• Rachela G. Milazzo,
• Antonio M. Mio,
• Giuseppe D’Arrigo,
• Emanuele Smecca,
• Alessandra Alberti,
• Gabriele Fisichella,
• Filippo Giannazzo,
• Corrado Spinella and
• Emanuele Rimini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 183–189, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.19

• , in the first case the layer-by-layer growth prevails while a 3D arrangement is promoted by the DHF pretreatment of 240 s. It is well known that HF strongly modifies the silicon surface roughness [26][27][28][29] and wetting properties [30]. The surface-free energy of gold is 1410 × 10−3 J/m−2, while

Studying friction while playing the violin: exploring the stick–slip phenomenon

• Santiago Casado

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 159–166, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.16

• -string, these variations in the intensity distribution of the sound waves can be attributed to the surface roughness of the two samples. Structural differences between the surfaces of both samples can be checked by an optical microscope and an AFM. In Figure 4, images of the samples taken at the same

• the stick–slip phenomenon, but the resultant is a fragile surface. This loose coating is rearranged during the fiddle and many particles are lost, explaining the requisite of continuously adding more rosin during the performance, and the cleaning after it. The comparison between the surface roughness

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering of self-assembled thiol monolayers and supported lipid membranes on thin anodic porous alumina

• Marco Salerno,
• Amirreza Shayganpour,
• Barbara Salis and
• Silvia Dante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 74–81, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.8

• surface roughness [3][4], the latter of which can play an important role in the adhesion and proliferation of cells [5][6][7]. The self-ordered nano-structured APA, also demonstrated recently as a possible nanolithographic mask [8][9] and for chemical sensors and biosensors [10], after coating with noble

When the going gets rough – studying the effect of surface roughness on the adhesive abilities of tree frogs

• Niall Crawford,
• Thomas Endlein,
• Jonathan T. Pham,
• Mathis Riehle and
• W. Jon P. Barnes

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2116–2131, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.201

• abrasion of the pad epithelium. Here, we tested the effect of surface roughness on the attachment abilities of the tree frog Litoria caerulea. This was done by testing shear and adhesive forces on artificial surfaces with controlled roughness, both on single toe pads and whole animal scales. It was shown

• specialised morphology allow the tree frogs to climb smooth vertical and overhanging surfaces. The attachment ability of tree frogs is affected by both surface chemistry and surface roughness. Hydrophobic leaves (such as those on lotus leaves [4]), could affect the capillary forces produced by the pad (which

• require low fluid contact angles), and deprive the pads of adhesive ability. Indeed, many plant surfaces are hydrophobic, as this reduces water loss [5]. Turning to surface roughness, this affects the ability of the pad surface to form close contact with the surface. With fine-scale roughness, the volume

Evolution of the graphite surface in phosphoric acid: an AFM and Raman study

• Rossella Yivlialin,
• Luigi Brambilla,
• Gianlorenzo Bussetti,
• Matteo Tommasini,
• Andrea Li Bassi,
• Carlo Spartaco Casari,
• Matteo Passoni,
• Franco Ciccacci,
• Lamberto Duò and
• Chiara Castiglioni

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1878–1884, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.180

• at the micrometer scale, i.e., local swellings of the surface caused by the production of gases (O2, CO and/or CO2) due to the oxidation processes occurring at high anodic potentials [7]. At the nanometer scale, protrusions have been observed together with an increase of the surface roughness caused

• on the same regions by ex situ AFM experiments. Figure 3a shows that the A-area, where the modified film is unquestionably present, is characterized by a high surface roughness (Rq = 0.3 nm from AFM analysis, which is about five times higher than characteristic mean square root values measured on

• system, i.e., the cyclic-voltammetry (CV) curve, presents a single feature during the first EC potential sweep, but it disappears during the second scan. On the other hand, EC atomic force microscopy (EC-AFM) measurements, performed in situ in the EC cell, reveal a significant increase of the surface

Monolayer graphene/SiC Schottky barrier diodes with improved barrier height uniformity as a sensing platform for the detection of heavy metals

• Ivan Shtepliuk,
• Jens Eriksson,
• Volodymyr Khranovskyy,
• Tihomir Iakimov,
• Anita Lloyd Spetz and
• Rositsa Yakimova

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1800–1814, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.173

• ideality parameter for graphene/SiC structures are the homogeneity of the graphene thickness, the quality of the grown interface (defects, pits, dislocations, surface roughness), the type of the grown interface (SiC polytypism, face polarity) and the growth conditions. Indeed, we noticed that the Schottky

Precise in situ etch depth control of multilayered III−V semiconductor samples with reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS) equipment

• Ann-Kathrin Kleinschmidt,
• Lars Barzen,
• Johannes Strassner,
• Christoph Doering,
• Henning Fouckhardt,
• Wolfgang Bock,
• Michael Wahl and
• Michael Kopnarski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1783–1793, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.171

• ], known from various studies on epitaxial growth, or on surface roughness due to ion bombardment [9][39][40][41]. Also, information on the composition of compound semiconductors [1] as well as the doping of the etched layers (related to the offset/mean value of the Fabry–Perot oscillations) are included

Properties of Ni and Ni–Fe nanowires electrochemically deposited into a porous alumina template

• Alla I. Vorobjova,
• Dmitry L. Shimanovich,
• Kazimir I. Yanushkevich,
• Sergej L. Prischepa and
• Elena A. Outkina

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1709–1717, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.163

• °C and a voltage of 25 ± 2 V for 1–2 min to reduce the surface roughness. Next, the samples were washed in distilled water and dried in a dry air stream. Before anodization, the technological frame has been formed along the perimeter and in the center of the substrate. It is necessary to strengthen

Enhanced detection of nitrogen dioxide via combined heating and pulsed UV operation of indium oxide nano-octahedra

• Oriol Gonzalez,
• Sergio Roso,
• Xavier Vilanova and
• Eduard Llobet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1507–1518, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.144

• , sensors were left for an hour to level and then were dried at 150 °C. Finally they were fired at 300 °C for 12 h. The active films were 6 µm thick, quite porous and with a surface roughness of about 2 µm [21]. The largest dimension of indium oxide octahedra is about 500 nm. Therefore, the UV light can

The effect of dry shear aligning of nanotube thin films on the photovoltaic performance of carbon nanotube–silicon solar cells

• Benedikt W. Stolz,
• Daniel D. Tune and
• Benjamin S. Flavel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1486–1491, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.141

• flatter, with atomic force microscopy showing two orders of magnitude reductions in surface roughness (from ≈140 nm to only 3–4 nm) [43], which should lead to the desired improvements in interfacial contact between the nanotube film and the silicon substrate. The optical properties of the nanotube films