Zn/F-doped tin oxide nanoparticles synthesized by laser pyrolysis: structural and optical properties

• Florian Dumitrache,
• Iuliana P. Morjan,
• Elena Dutu,
• Ion Morjan,
• Claudiu Teodor Fleaca,
• Monica Scarisoreanu,
• Alina Ilie,
• Marius Dumitru,
• Cristian Mihailescu,
• Adriana Smarandache and
• Gabriel Prodan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 9–21, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.2

• structure. The main diffraction patterns of stannous fluoride (SnF2) were also identified and a reduction in intensity with increasing Zn percentage was evidenced. For the elemental composition estimation, energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements

• electrical properties of the ZTOst standard sample. Yet, the simultaneous substitutional fluorine doping of SnO2 must also be considered, as will be discussed in the paragraph when XRD and XPS analyses are presented. Considering the most intense peak (101) of the dominant phase SnO2, the crystallite size (D

• /DZnEt2, while keeping the sensitizer flow constant. In order to estimate the elemental composition for the Zn/F-doped SnO2 powders, EDX and XPS measurements were conducted; the results are presented in Table 1. In the XPS measurements, the peaks centered around 487 eV, 494 eV, 531.43 eV, 684 eV, 1022 eV

A novel polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-modified layered double hydroxide: preparation, characterization and properties

• Xianwei Zhang,
• Zhongzhu Ma,
• Hong Fan,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Jintao Wan and
• Philippe Dubois

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 3053–3068, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.284

• reference sample. FTIR and XPS FTIR is very useful in confirming the structures of LDH materials at the molecular level, as it provides important information about the interlayer anions. Figure 4 shows the FTIR spectra of NLDH and OLDH. The broad band in the range of 3700–3200 cm−1 is assigned to the O–H

• consistent with the following XPS, XRD and elemental analysis results. The presence of the elements Mg, Al, Si, O, C and N in OLDH is further confirmed by XPS. The survey spectra illustrated in Figure 5 show the peaks of electrons emitted from the Mg 2p, Mg 2s, Al 2p, and Al 2s core levels. Compared to NLDH

• ), leading to the enhancement of thermal stability. Furthermore, the morphology of char residues after thermal degradation in both N2 and air was investigated through SEM with the images shown in Figure 12, and the change of surface components before and after degradation were examined through XPS with plots

Ternary nanocomposites of reduced graphene oxide, polyaniline and hexaniobate: hierarchical architecture and high polaron formation

• Claudio H. B. Silva,
• Maria Iliut,
• Christopher Muryn,
• Christian Berger,
• Zachary Coldrick,
• Vera R. L. Constantino,
• Marcia L. A. Temperini and
• Aravind Vijayaraghavan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2936–2946, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.272

• rGO flakes coated with PANI and decorated by hexNb nanoscrolls. To analyse the reduction of graphene oxide under the present conditions, GO and rGO samples were characterised by XPS spectroscopy. High-resolution XPS spectra can also provide information on the reduction degree of GO, since C 1s core

• level photoelectrons present slightly different binding energies depending on the environment of the carbon atoms. Figure 4 shows the high-resolution XPS spectra at the C 1s core level for GO and rGO samples prepared by reactions at 25 °C for 7 days and at 80 °C for 3 h (rGO-25 and rGO-80, respectively

• ). XPS spectra of GO and rGO-25 consist mainly of two asymmetric and highly overlapping peaks (maxima at ca. 285 and ca. 287 eV). The comparison of these spectra clearly shows the increase of relative intensity of the low-binding energy peak upon reduction. This is attributed to the partial recovery of

Nanostructure-induced performance degradation of WO₃·nH₂O for energy conversion and storage devices

• Zhenyin Hai,
• Mohammad Karbalaei Akbari,
• Zihan Wei,
• Danfeng Cui,
• Chenyang Xue,
• Hongyan Xu,
• Philippe M. Heynderickx,
• Francis Verpoort and
• Serge Zhuiykov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2845–2854, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.265

• bonding was collected by X-ray photoelectron spectrometry (XPS, K-Alpha, Thermo Scientific) and Raman spectroscopy (EZRaman-N-785, TSI. Inc.), respectively. Electrochemical characterization of the samples was performed using an Autolab PGSTAT204 (Metrohm Autolab B.V.) with a three-electrode configuration

• . Figure 5b,c depicts the high-resolution XPS core-level W4f and O1s spectra, respectively. The W 4f orbitals in Figure 5b are almost identical in the three samples and can be resolved into W 4f5/2 and W 4f7/2. The two main peaks correspond to the W4f7/2 and W4f5/2 of the tungsten atoms in a +6 oxidation

• synthesis temperature demonstrated the increasing stability of the samples as the interlayer water and coordinated water molecules disappeared successively with only a few unavoidable surface-absorbed water molecules left [49][50]. The above XPS results confirm the SEM analysis. To get further inside of the

Graphene-enhanced metal oxide gas sensors at room temperature: a review

• Dongjin Sun,
• Yifan Luo,
• Marc Debliquy and
• Chao Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2832–2844, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.264

• metal oxides, is proposed. In detail, the enhanced sensing performance is accounted for by chemical bonds between graphene and metal oxides. Many XPS studies have claimed that there indeed exist chemical bonds between metal oxides and graphene. WO3, a transition-metal oxide semiconductor is widely used

• confirmed that there existed C–O–W chemical bonds between WO3 and graphene by Raman and XPS measurements. The proposed sensing mechanism is shown in Figure 5. When exposed to oxygen or NO2 molecules, the gas molecules adsorbed on WO3 nanospheres cause the energy band to bend upward via obtaining electrons

• of graphene may also enhance the response because graphene offers conductive pathways that enhanced the efficiency of charge-carrier transfer in the composites. Zhang et al. [60] fabricated a Co3O4–graphene gas sensor through a traditional hydrothermal method. The XPS results certified that Co–O–C

Controlling surface morphology and sensitivity of granular and porous silver films for surface-enhanced Raman scattering, SERS

• Sherif Okeil and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2813–2831, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.263

• microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron (XPS and Auger) and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–vis) as well as contact angle measurements. It was found that different morphologies of the roughened Ag films could be obtained under controlled

• Rigaku Miniflex 600@40 kV 15 mA diffractometer using Cu Kα1 radiation (λ = 1.541 Å). XPS measurements were performed using a K-Alpha XPS spectrometer (ThermoFischer Scientific, East Grinstead, UK). Data acquisition and processing was done using the Thermo Avantage software. All samples were analyzed

• characterization of hydrogen and nitrogen plasma treated silver films Neither XPS analysis nor Auger spectroscopy could detect the presence of nitrogen in the nitrogen plasma treated samples (Figure 4a and Figures S9–S11 and Table S1 and Table S2, Supporting Information File 1). Even depth profiling using Auger

Accurate control of the covalent functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes for the electro-enzymatically controlled oxidation of biomolecules

• Naoual Allali,
• Veronika Urbanova,
• Mathieu Etienne,
• Xavier Devaux,
• Martine Mallet,
• Brigitte Vigolo,
• Jean-Joseph Adjizian,
• Chris P. Ewels,
• Sven Oberg,
• Alexander V. Soldatov,
• Edward McRae,
• Yves Fort,
• Manuel Dossot and
• Victor Mamane

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2750–2762, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.257

• defects introduced by tuning the irradiation time. A few milligrams of the corresponding oxidized SWCNTs were analyzed in each case before proceeding to step 2. At this stage, the samples were protected under argon gas to avoid any moisture contamination and directly analyzed by HRTEM, XPS and TGA-MS

• HNO3 65% and grafted with the FcETG8 ferrocene derivative. After step 3 of the functionalization process, we used a set of complementary techniques to determine the success of the covalent functionalization of the CNT samples. XPS analyses were realized on CNT powders to see if the ferrocene groups

• components contributing to the C 1s signal, has also doubled. Oxidation step 1 has therefore increased the number of oxidized defects on CNT sidewalls and extremities, at least at the surface of the bundles, which was probed by XPS. It should be pointed out that our raw HIPCO sample has already been

Optimization of Mo/Cr bilayer back contacts for thin-film solar cells

• Nima Khoshsirat,
• Fawad Ali,
• Vincent Tiing Tiong,
• Mojtaba Amjadipour,
• Hongxia Wang,
• Mahnaz Shafiei and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2700–2707, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.252

• . Patterns were collected for 1 h at a step size of 0.01° from 10 to 85° 2θ at 1.3° per minute over the 2θ axis. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was performed using a Kratos Axis Supra with Al Kα X-ray radiation (hν 1486.7 eV). High-resolution scans of the O 1s, C 1s, Na 1s, Cr 2p, Na 1s and Mo 3d

• regions were acquired with 10 eV pass energy and about 0.4 eV spectral resolution to discriminate the substructure of the spectral lines. Ar+ ion cluster etching was employed for XPS depth profiling and the calibration was carried out using a typical Mo on glass sample with sputtering rate of 15.5 nm/s

• mechanism of Cr and Na to the top layer, we first heated the Mo/Cr films on SLG to 550 °C for 30 min in argon atmosphere. This is the temperature that is normally used for sulfurization and selenization of CIGS and CZTS layers. Then XPS depth profiling was performed on the annealed Mo/Cr films to search for

Impact of the anodization time on the photocatalytic activity of TiO₂ nanotubes

• Jesús A. Díaz-Real,
• Geyla C. Dubed-Bandomo,
• Juan Galindo-de-la-Rosa,
• Luis G. Arriaga,
• Janet Ledesma-García and
• Nicolas Alonso-Vante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2628–2643, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.244

• is supported by the fact that atomic radii for O (48 pm) and F (42 pm) are similar enough to allow for the replacement of the former, effectively doping the material by creating oxygen vacancies and different energy states [29]. XPS To characterize the surface chemistry, high-resolution XPS

• growth orientation with an expanded representation of 3 × 3 × 4 cells as shown in Figure 3. Taking into account the XPS analyses, a higher concentration of F− ions could be responsible for such changes in the lattice parameters as a result of the doping effect, which might be reflected in the electrical

• nanotube length and the chemical composition is established in agreement with the results obtained by XPS and XRD. While the previous results were obtained from potentiodynamic experiments (LSV), a comparative analysis can be done by establishing a constant polarization to understand the sweep-rate

Au–Si plasmonic platforms: synthesis, structure and FDTD simulations

• Anna Gapska,
• Marcin Łapiński,
• Paweł Syty,
• Wojciech Sadowski,
• Józef E. Sienkiewicz and
• Barbara Kościelska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2599–2608, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.241

• of platforms was investigated using XRD and XPS methods. Structural investigations confirmed, that nanostructures consist of metallic Au, growing along the [111] direction. The most homogeneous seems to be the platform obtained by solidification of a 2.8 nm Au film, annealed at 550 °C for 15 min

• the obtained nanostructures and valence states of Au was measured using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with an Omicron NanoTechnology spectrometer with 128-channel collector. XPS measurements were performed at room temperature under ultra-high vacuum conditions, below 1.1 × 10−8 mbar. The

• ). XPS spectra were analyzed with the Casa-XPS software using a Shirley background subtraction and Gaussian–Lorentzian curves for fitting. UV–vis spectra were recorded by a double-beam Thermo Fisher Scientific Evolution 220 spectrophotometer in reflectance mode. The spectra were recorded in a range of

SERS active Ag–SiO₂ nanoparticles obtained by laser ablation of silver in colloidal silica

• Cristina Gellini,
• Francesco Muniz-Miranda,
• Alfonso Pedone and
• Maurizio Muniz-Miranda

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2396–2404, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.224

• known that the presence of chloride ions in silver colloids promotes the formation of positively charged active sites on the surface of the silver nanoparticles [55][56], as experimental proved by XPS measurements, which show a significant amount of oxidized silver on the particle surface [57]. Finally

Nanotribology

• Enrico Gnecco,
• Susan Perkin,
• Andrea Vanossi and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2330–2331, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.217

• techniques for materials characterization are those typical of surface science (e.g., X-ray diffraction, SEM, TEM, XPS and Raman spectroscopy), more specific to nanotribology are nanoindenters, nanotribometers, quartz force microbalance and especially atomic force microscopy (AFM), which, without a doubt

Hierarchical heterostructures of Bi₂MoO₆ microflowers decorated with Ag₂CO₃ nanoparticles for efficient visible-light-driven photocatalytic removal of toxic pollutants

• Shijie Li,
• Wei Jiang,
• Shiwei Hu,
• Yu Liu,
• Yanping Liu,
• Kaibing Xu and
• Jianshe Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2297–2305, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.214

• structure was found after the photocatalytic reactions, as shown in the XRD pattern (Figure 8b). However, the XPS pattern of the used ACO/BMO-30 suggests that some Ag+ is reduced to Ag(0) after the reaction (Figure S5, Supporting Information File 1). It has been recognized that the formation of Ag/Ag2CO3

Phosphorus monolayer doping (MLD) of silicon on insulator (SOI) substrates

• Noel Kennedy,
• Ray Duffy,
• Luke Eaton,
• Dan O’Connell,
• Scott Monaghan,
• Shane Garvey,
• James Connolly,
• Chris Hatem,
• Justin D. Holmes and
• Brenda Long

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2106–2113, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.199

• the liquid phase enhances this re-oxidation. Therefore, precautions are taken to ensure a minimal re-oxidation, i.e., solvents are thoroughly degassed, and processing is carried out in a N2 environment using a Schlenk line. XPS analysis of samples immediately after functionalization indicated that

• under neutral conditions. Controlled-voltage etching was carried out with step widths of 2–5 nm. Secondary ion mass spectrometry data was acquired on a Phi Adept 1010 using a 0.5–1.0 keV Cs+ bombardment with negative ion detection. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy XPS spectra were acquired on an Oxford

• Applied Research Escabase XPS system equipped with a CLASS VM 100 mm mean radius hemispherical electron energy analyser with a triple-channel detector arrangement in an analysis chamber with a base pressure of 5.0 × 10−10 mbar. Survey scans were acquired between 0 and 1400 eV with a step size of 0.7 eV, a

Localized photodeposition of catalysts using nanophotonic resonances in silicon photocathodes

• Evgenia Kontoleta,
• Sven H. C. Askes,
• Lai-Hung Lai and
• Erik C. Garnett

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2097–2105, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.198

• -electron spectroscopy (XPS) on a sample with a higher amount of photo-electrodeposited platinum (ca. 2 mC). The observed platinum 4f7/2 and 4f5/2 binding energy peaks corresponded very well to those of a metallic Pt reference material (Figure 3c). Overall, these results demonstrate that light can be used

• electrolyte. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) was performed in a custom-built ultrahigh-vacuum chamber, operating at a base pressure below 5 × 10−9 mbar. A XM1200 monochromatic X-ray source (Al Kα line, Scienta Omicron) was used for X-ray excitation of the sample

• technical assistance with the XPS measurements. This work is part of the research program of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM), which is financially supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

Metal-free catalysis based on nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials: a photoelectron spectroscopy point of view

• Mattia Scardamaglia and
• Carla Bittencourt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2015–2031, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.191

• exhibits a vacancy as neighbor. The different nitrogen configurations are easily distinguished by XPS according to the binding energy of the N 1s core level spectra. The pyridinic configuration is usually found at 398–399 eV, the pyrrolic configuration and other defective components at 399.5–400.5 eV, and

• determination is not possible by using only XPS and other techniques need to be used, e.g., infrared spectroscopy and electron microscopy. Content and configuration of nitrogen in graphene and carbon nanotubes can be tuned by thermal annealing or by the interaction with different substrates. Temperature

• role of the active sites was not addressed in detail, the electrode performance was remarkable. The N/C ratio was approximately 4 % but the energy resolution of the reported XPS data was too poor to correctly distinguish the different N species. The N 1s peak was deconvoluted into two components

Defect formation in multiwalled carbon nanotubes under low-energy He and Ne ion irradiation

• Santhana Eswara,
• Jean-Nicolas Audinot,
• Brahime El Adib,
• Maël Guennou,
• Tom Wirtz and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1951–1963, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.186

• directly related to the number of defects in CNTs [30], or X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) which provides some information on the chemical environment of the carbon atoms [31]. In this context, it is to be noted that helium ion microscopy (HIM) has received increasing attention recently as a high

Synthesis of a MnO₂/Fe₃O₄/diatomite nanocomposite as an efficient heterogeneous Fenton-like catalyst for methylene blue degradation

• Zishun Li,
• Xuekun Tang,
• Kun Liu,
• Jing Huang,
• Yueyang Xu,
• Qian Peng and
• Minlin Ao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1940–1950, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.185

• Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) using a Nicolet Nexus 670 spectrometer. The morphology of samples was observed with a TESCAN MIRA3 LMU scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a JEOL JEM-1200EX transmission electron microscope (TEM). The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements

• field (inset). The decrease of the maximum saturation magnetizations after the treatment with KMnO4 is largely ascribed to the outer MnO2 shell, the saturation magnetization of which is much lower than the Fe3O4 nanoparticles. XPS measurements were carried out to determine the surface chemical

• surface chemical composition results obtained from the XPS analysis ensure the formation of Fe3O4 and MnO2, which further confirms the observation from the previous structural and morphological characterization. Figure 7 shows the N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms and corresponding pore-size

Synthesis of rare-earth metal and rare-earth metal-fluoride nanoparticles in ionic liquids and propylene carbonate

• Marvin Siebels,
• Lukas Mai,
• Laura Schmolke,
• Kai Schütte,
• Juri Barthel,
• Junpei Yue,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Bernd M. Smarsly,
• Anjana Devi,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1881–1894, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.180

• IL [BMIm][BF4] for RE = Pr, Eu, Gd and Er. The crystalline phases and the absence of significant oxide impurities in RE-NPs and REF3-NPs were verified by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The size

• not done, because matching of the F Kα1 binding energy against the Lα1 or Lβ1 binding energies for Eu, Gd and Er is not very accurate. The measured oxidation state 3+ of the rare-earth metals in the fluorides was corroborated by high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HR-XPS) (Figure 4 and

• Figures S4c, S5c, S6d, Supporting Information File 1) through comparison to the reported binding energies of metal(III) fluorides/oxides, metal(0) and organic fluorine/oxygen (Table 2) [48][49]. The measured metal and fluorine XPS values are in good agreement with the values of metal(III) fluorides that

A visible-light-controlled platform for prolonged drug release based on Ag-doped TiO₂ nanotubes with a hydrophobic layer

• Caihong Liang,
• Jiang Wen and
• Xiaoming Liao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1793–1801, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.170

• + and the NDM hydrophobic layer was verified by SEM and EDS; the results are shown in Figure 3. Furthermore, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was employed to analyze the chemical state of the coating layer of Ag-TNTs and Zn-Ag-TNTs shown in Figure 4. Figure 3a,b clearly demonstrates that some

• . The existence of S demonstrates that NDM has been successfully applied onto the TNTs. The main components of the Ag and Zn substances were measured through XPS (see Figure 4). Figure 4a presents the XPS full spectrum of Ag-TNTs where Ag, Ti and O elements are shown to exist, while Figure 4e is the

• full XPS spectrum of Zn-Ag-TNTs, in which Zn, Ti, Ag and O elements are detected. These spectra suggest the successful decoration of Ag as well as loading of Zn. The presence of C may be attributed to the incorporation from the electrolyte and the organic contamination adsorbed from environment. Figure

SO₂ gas adsorption on carbon nanomaterials: a comparative study

• Deepu J. Babu,
• Divya Puthusseri,
• Frank G. Kühl,
• Sherif Okeil,
• Michael Bruns,
• Manfred Hampe and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1782–1792, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.169

• functionalities, which in turn increases the layer separation and turns the material hydrophilic. The subsequent exfoliation step separates the layers, thereby significantly increasing its accessible surface area leading to the formation of single- or few-layered GO. In our previous work, by XPS analysis, we have

• evaluation by N2 adsorption isotherm measurement and a detailed XPS analysis of their surface functionalities. Finally, the gas adsorption studies of all materials are presented and compared comprehensively. Raman spectroscopy is one of the few meaningful characterization techniques that are able to

• chemical composition as well. Due to their high absorption near the infrared region, IR spectroscopy is seldom used to characterize CNTs and CNHs. In contrast, XPS is a central characterization method that can be successfully applied to different types of carbon materials to obtain meaningful chemical

Uniform cobalt nanoparticles embedded in hexagonal mesoporous nanoplates as a magnetically separable, recyclable adsorbent

• Can Zhao,
• Yuexiao Song,
• Tianyu Xiang,
• Wenxiu Qu,
• Shuo Lou,
• Xiaohong Yin and
• Feng Xin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1770–1781, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.168

• adsorption spectra were recorded on a UV-2550 (Shimadzu, Japan) instrument. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was conducted on a PHA-5400 (SPECS, America) spectrometer. Raman spectra were performed on an In-Via Raman spectroscopy system (Renishaw, England) with excitation laser wavelengths of 532 nm

• [38]. XPS was used to investigate the surface composition of the sample NPLs-2.5-800 and the valence state of the elements. The elements Co, Al, C, O, and N can be clearly observed in the full survey XPS spectrum (Figure 6B). The two characteristic peaks located at 780.8 eV and 796.5 eV in the Co 2p

• spectrum are assigned to the 2p3/2 and 2p1/2 spin–orbit split peaks of Co (II) species, respectively (Figure 6C). Two small peaks at 786.4 eV and 803.5 eV are two satellite peaks of Co (II) species [39]. XPS is sensitive to atoms in the near-surface layer, hence only two weak peaks in Figure 6C ascribed to

Cryochemical synthesis of ultrasmall, highly crystalline, nanostructured metal oxides and salts

• Elena A. Trusova and
• Nikolai S. Trutnev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1755–1763, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.166

• atomic emission spectrometer (ICP-MS, Optima-5300). It was shown that the content of residual carbon and nitrogen in the powders did not exceed 0.08 and 0.07 wt %, respectively. The NiO nanopowder was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, PHI5500 Versa Probe II) with a monochromatic Al

• a cryosol (Figure 7) shows an highly dispersed crystalline state, which was confirmed by the TEM data (Figure 6a). The broadened reflexes confirm the high dispersity of the CeO2 crystallites. Figure 8 shows the collected XPS spectrum of the NiO nanopowder obtained by using the cryochemical method

• a better-dispersed nanopowder with smaller crystallite size. X-ray diffraction pattern for a CeO2 (JCPDS Card No. 43-1002) nanopowder obtained from a cryosol (XRD-6000 Shimadzu, Japan). Collected XPS spectrum of NiO nanopowders synthesized using the cryochemical method. XPS data for NiO nanopowders

Toward the use of CVD-grown MoS₂ nanosheets as field-emission source

• Geetanjali Deokar,
• Nitul S. Rajput,
• Junjie Li,
• Francis Leonard Deepak,
• Wei Ou-Yang,
• Nicolas Reckinger,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Jean-Francois Colomer and
• Mustapha Jouiad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1686–1694, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.160

• tip radius below 10 nm) with a resonant frequency of 312 kHz. To confirm the layer number of the NSs, micro-Raman spectroscopy was performed using a 473 nm laser at room temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements were performed using a Thermo Fisher Scientific K-alpha

• indicates the presence of more than three layers of MoS2 [23]. The chemical state of the as-grown samples was investigated by XPS. The Mo 3d, S 2p and O 1s high-resolution core-level spectrum fits are presented in Figure 2b,c. The corresponding data analysis results are given in Table S1 (Supporting

• stored in air for several days before performing the XPS measurements. Thus, the surface-sensitive characterization technique (XPS) shows the dominant presence of the MoS2 phase on the sample surface. Microstructural analysis of the MoS2 NSs In Figure 3, plane-view images of as-grown MoS2 NSs are

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

• a strong bonding capacity for S. This will reduce the S losses to the electrolyte, and thus improve the cycling performance of the Li/S battery. In fact, the S–Zn and S–O bonds were confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of the as-obtained S/ZnO@NCNT composite (Figure 5). In the S 2p

• ]. Regarding the Zn 2p spectrum, the peaks located at 1022.2 and 1045.3 eV are the 2p3/2 and 2p1/2 states, respectively (Figure 5b) [25]. Since Zn–O and Zn–S have a similar XPS bonding energy in the two Zn states, they are not distinguishable in the Zn 2p spectrum. The performance of the as-prepared S/ZnO@NCNT

• such a good performance originates from a strong bonding capacity of the reactive ZnO planes in the composite. As confirmed by the XPS analysis, the exposed active surfaces on ZnO can “hold” a large amount of S species through Zn–S and O–S bonds and therefore contribute to the observed excellent