Lithium peroxide crystal clusters as a natural growth feature of discharge products in Li–O₂ cells

• Tatiana K. Zakharchenko,
• Anna Y. Kozmenkova,
• Daniil M. Itkis and
• Eugene A. Goodilin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 758–762, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.86

• utilized as the model electrodes (Figure 1a) were prepared from gold–silver alloy foils (see Supporting Information File 1 for experimental details). The mean pore size was estimated to be about 200 nm (see Figure S1 in Supporting Information File 1). This allowed us to observe changes in the morphology of

Plasticity of nanocrystalline alloys with chemical order: on the strength and ductility of nanocrystalline Ni–Fe

• Jonathan Schäfer and
• Karsten Albe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 542–553, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.63

• dislocations [3][4]. The experimental realization of a nanocrystalline (nc) microstructure of an ordered alloy, however, strongly depends on the route of preparation. For electrodeposited nc Ni–Fe alloys (up to 28% Fe) a solid solution with no chemical order was observed [5]. In Ni3Al, a partially ordered

• elemental distribution and not due to a differing stable configuration for the case of a nanometer grain size as observed for other systems [29]. Random alloy: fixed GB composition, varying grain composition (15 nm) For coarse grained material, the strengthening effect of substitutional solutes (i.e., solid

• composition in the next section. Random alloy: varying GB composition, fixed grain composition (15 nm) The delicate interplay between solute distribution and mechanical response of this nc alloy was further studied on samples, where the random solid solution inside the grain interior was held at a constant

Nanoglasses: a new kind of noncrystalline materials

• Herbert Gleiter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 517–533, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.61

• properties of materials by varying their chemical microstructure is displayed in Figure 2 indicating the increase of the work hardening of an (Al-1.6 atom % Cu) alloy if the chemical microstructure (at constant chemical composition) is changed [2]. Glassy materials, although known for about 11000 years, have

• nanomaterials. As is well known from the phase diagrams of numerous alloys, the mutual solubility of the components forming an alloy is, in most systems, in the molten state much higher than the mutual solubility of the same components in the crystalline state. Well-known examples for the different solubilities

• that are immiscible in the crystalline state. Multiphase glasses structured on a nanometer scale have been produced by phase separation and have been studied in several alloy systems, e.g., in Ag–Ni [79][80], Cu–Nb [81], Ag–Cu [82][83][84], Ag–Fe [56], Ag–Gd [57], Cu–Ta and Cu–W [58]. The

Catalytic activity of nanostructured Au: Scale effects versus bimetallic/bifunctional effects in low-temperature CO oxidation on nanoporous Au

• Lu-Cun Wang,
• Yi Zhong,
• Haijun Jin,
• Daniel Widmann,
• Jörg Weissmüller and
• R. Jürgen Behm

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 111–128, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.13

• are discussed. Keywords: AuAg alloy; AuCu alloy; CO oxidation; dynamic studies; kinetics; nanoporous Au (NPG) catalyst; oxygen storage capacity (OSC); temporal analysis of products (TAP); Introduction Porous metallic materials with well-controlled morphologies and surface properties have attracted

• latter method, electrochemical dealloying, nanoporous gold (NPG) materials with ligament sizes of less than 6 nm can be effectively fabricated [5][10]. Zielasek et al. [4] and Xu et al. [11] reported that nanoporous gold, prepared by the selective dissolution of Ag from a AuAg alloy, exhibits a

• amounts of the second, less noble metal in the Au alloy used for NPG formation, such as Ag [13][29][30], Cu [6] or Al [31], which cannot be fully removed during dealloying [29], were proposed to be responsible for the unexpected high catalytic activity of NPG catalysts [4][32][33]. This would agree also

Characterization and properties of micro- and nanowires of controlled size, composition, and geometry fabricated by electrodeposition and ion-track technology

• Maria Eugenia Toimil-Molares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 860–883, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.97

• thermoelectric nanowires in etched ion-track membranes enable the control of various wire parameters. It is particularly important to control the alloy composition and to obtain wire diameters as small as possible, because large enhancements in TE performance are expected when quantum size effects and enhanced

Ordered arrays of nanoporous gold nanoparticles

• Dong Wang,
• Ran Ji,
• Arne Albrecht and
• Peter Schaaf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 651–657, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.74

• ) enables fabrication of perfectly ordered 2-dimensional arrays of nanoporous gold nanoparticles. The dewetting of Au/Ag bilayers on the periodically prepatterned substrates leads to the interdiffusion of Au and Ag and the formation of an array of Au–Ag alloy nanoparticles. The array of alloy nanoparticles

• to fabricate nanoparticles [14][15]. The dewetting of metal films is driven by reducing the surface energy of the film and the interface energy between the film and the substrate, and occurs by diffusion even well below the melting temperature of the film [15]. In addition, alloy nanoparticles can be

• the local curvature or by limiting the diffusion paths. This leads to the formation of 2-D nanoparticle arrays with well-defined particle size and particle spacing. Dealloying is a “bottom-up” approach to fabricate nanoporous gold by selectively removing or leaching the element Ag from the Au–Ag alloy

Focused electron beam induced deposition: A perspective

• Michael Huth,
• Fabrizio Porrati,
• Christian Schwalb,
• Marcel Winhold,
• Roland Sachser,
• Maja Dukic,
• Jonathan Adams and
• Georg Fantner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 597–619, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.70

• analysis (EDX), are shown for nine samples. A priori it is not clear whether Si is preferentially included in the carbonaceous matrix or forms an alloy with Pt. From the EDX results several conclusions can be drawn, as was detailed in [28]. For low Si content a progressive decrease of the C content is

• growth of Si and O content ceases when a Si/Pt ratio of about 1 is reached. It is speculated that a substantial part of the Si content of the samples is now bound to the Pt, forming amorphous Pt–Si alloy structures. This assumption is to some degree corroborated by the results of transmission electron

Synthesis and electrical characterization of intrinsic and in situ doped Si nanowires using a novel precursor

• Wolfgang Molnar,
• Alois Lugstein,
• Tomasz Wojcik,
• Peter Pongratz,
• Norbert Auner,
• Christian Bauch and
• Emmerich Bertagnolli

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 564–569, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.65

• straight, crystalline, nanometre-sized wires. During VLS growth a Si precursor is introduced, which is cracked and dissolved into the catalytic liquid phase. Generally Au is used as the catalyst on Si substrates, forming a liquid alloy with a eutectic temperature of 364 °C, which, upon supersaturation

Directed deposition of silicon nanowires using neopentasilane as precursor and gold as catalyst

• Britta Kämpken,
• Verena Wulf,
• Norbert Auner,
• Marcel Winhold,
• Michael Huth,
• Daniel Rhinow and
• Andreas Terfort

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 535–545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.62

• gold nanoparticles as a catalyst has been explored. The growth proceeds via the formation of liquid gold/silicon alloy droplets, which excrete the silicon nanowires upon continued decomposition of the precursor. This mechanism determines the diameter of the Si nanowires. Different sources for the gold

• vaporous silicon precursor, forming a liquid Si–metal alloy. As more of the precursor is added to the system, crystalline silicon NWs are excreted from the alloy due to oversaturation. One effect of this mechanism is that the diameter of the NW is directly correlated to the particle size of the catalytic

• eutectic point of the silicon–gold alloy at 363 °C. However, the best results are achieved at temperatures of 450 °C or higher [19]. Typical deposition methods for the metal include sputtering [20], or its adsorption in the form of nanoclusters [21] or nanoparticles [22]. The sputtering process requires no

qPlus magnetic force microscopy in frequency-modulation mode with millihertz resolution

• Maximilian Schneiderbauer,
• Daniel Wastl and
• Franz J. Giessibl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 174–178, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.18

• acquisition times. To benchmark our setup, we reduced the magnetic moment of the tip by attaching a commercial MFM cantilever tip (NanoWorld Pointprobe MFMR, coated with approx. 40 nm cobalt alloy) onto a qPlus sensor. This has been done before in tuning-fork setups in room-temperature ultrahigh-vacuum

Size-dependent phase diagrams of metallic alloys: A Monte Carlo simulation study on order–disorder transitions in Pt–Rh nanoparticles

• Johan Pohl,
• Christian Stahl and
• Karsten Albe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 1–11, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.1

• simulation; nanoparticles; nanothermodynamics; phase diagram; Pt-Rh; thermodynamics; Introduction Pt–Rh is an important alloy due to its catalytic activity in different reactions. In the past it was assumed that Pt–Rh is immiscible at low temperatures [1][2], but theoretical studies revealed that Pt–Rh

• conditions are experimentally possible [10], but hard to realize and clearly not satisfied for the case of nanoparticles in equilibrium with their substrate. Phase equilibria between solid and liquid phases in binary alloy particles were, for example, investigated for Cu–Ni [12], Sn–Bi [13], Pb–Bi [14] and

• equilibrium configuration of binary-alloy particles. It features full control over the mixing properties and surface-energy differences of the pure elements, which is the driving force for surface segregation in our model. The dependency of the phase diagram on particle size is examined on the basis of three

STM visualisation of counterions and the effect of charges on self-assembled monolayers of macrocycles

• Tibor Kudernac,
• Natalia Shabelina,
• Wael Mamdouh,
• Sigurd Höger and
• Steven De Feyter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 674–680, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.72

• analogues. In future, more complex counterions with additional functionalities will be introduced. Experimental All STM experiments were carried out at 20–24 °C. Experiments were performed using a PicoSPM microscope (Agilent). Tips were mechanically cut from PtIr wire (80:20 alloy, diameter 0.25 mm). Prior

Nanoscaled alloy formation from self-assembled elemental Co nanoparticles on top of Pt films

• Luyang Han,
• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Kai Fauth,
• Ute Kaiser and
• Paul Ziemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 473–485, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.51

• ) films with micron-sized grains, local alloying at the film surface was established. Signatures of alloy formation were evident from magnetic investigations. Upon annealing to temperatures up to 380 °C, we found an increase both of the coercive field and of the Co orbital magnetic moment, indicating the

• formation of a CoPt phase with strongly increased magnetic anisotropy compared to pure Co. At higher temperatures, however, the Co atoms diffuse into a nearby surface region where Pt-rich compounds are formed, as shown by element-specific microscopy. Keywords: alloy; Co; CoPt; epitaxy; HRTEM; magnetometry

• as summarized in a recent publication [11]. Despite these successful attempts at fabricating arrays of the specific binary alloy NPs FePt and CoPt, from empirical evidence it appears much easier to prepare elemental NPs along these approaches, as judged from the sheer number of different magnetic or

Platinum nanoparticles from size adjusted functional colloidal particles generated by a seeded emulsion polymerization process

• Nicolas Vogel,
• Ulrich Ziener,
• Achim Manzke,
• Alfred Plettl,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Clemens K. Weiss and
• Katharina Landfester

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 459–472, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.50

• the quantity of complex in the precursor loaded colloids. Their adjustable size defines the interparticle distance of the NPs, and simultaneous loading with two metal complexes gives access to the fabrication of alloy NPs. A number of different synthetic approaches for colloidal particles is known in

Dense lying self-organized GaAsSb quantum dots on GaAs for efficient lasers

• Thomas H. Loeber,
• Dirk Hoffmann and
• Henning Fouckhardt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 333–338, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.39

• the QDs actually consist of the alloy GaAs1−xSbx. With decreasing Sb concentration within the QDs the emission wavelength decreased. To estimate the actual Sb concentration within the QDs, numerical simulations were performed with the program nextnano3 [19]. For the calculations, the dot dimensions

Effect of large mechanical stress on the magnetic properties of embedded Fe nanoparticles

• Srinivasa Saranu,
• Sören Selve,
• Ute Kaiser,
• Luyang Han,
• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Paul Ziemann and
• Ulrich Herr

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 268–275, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.31

• Deposition and structure of the Fe nanoparticles The Fe nanoparticles used in this study were prepared by plasma-assisted gas phase condensation [14]. This method allows deposition of both, elemental [15] and alloy clusters with rather narrow size distributions. By combination with a film deposition

Extended X-ray absorption fine structure of bimetallic nanoparticles

• Carolin Antoniak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 237–251, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.28

• nanoparticles are presented after a short summary of different preparation methods. The EXAFS results are also discussed regarding the influence of local structure and composition on the magnetic properties in an alloy, before conclusions are given in the last section. Review X-ray absorption near-edge

• from alloy targets in a continuous gas flow of helium and argon [79][80]. In general, the experimental setup for preparing nanoparticles from the gas phase is composed of three parts: A nucleation chamber, a sintering oven and a deposition chamber. After nucleation and particle growth in the nucleation

• , thus providing a route to synthesise nanoparticles of a chemically disordered FexPt1−x alloy surrounded by the surfactants. After cooling to room temperature, the particles were precipitated by adding ethanol and separated by centrifugation. After this procedure, the particles were dispersed in n

Structural and magnetic properties of ternary Fe_1–xMn_xPt nanoalloys from first principles

• Markus E. Gruner and
• Peter Entel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 162–172, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.20

• only small additions of Mn can be tolerated for data recording applications. Keywords: density functional theory; Fe–Pt; magnetic data recording; magnetostructural transition; Mn–Pt; Introduction Magnetic transition metal alloy nanoparticles provide a large variety of possibilities in several

• the energy related to internal lattice defects, such as twin boundaries, by deliberate design of the alloy composition. This could effectively disfavor multiply twinned morphologies, while the resulting trends can be monitored on the electronic level in the framework of large scale density functional

• alloy in one specific case by means of large scale ab initio total energy calculations in the framework of density functional theory. For representative system sizes in the range of a few nanometers, where the surface-to-volume ratio is balanced and competitive effects should be expected such

Structure, morphology, and magnetic properties of Fe nanoparticles deposited onto single-crystalline surfaces

• Armin Kleibert,
• Wolfgang Rosellen,
• Mathias Getzlaff and
• Joachim Bansmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 47–56, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.6

• case is given by FeCo alloy nanoparticles, where extremely high magnetic anisotropy energies have first been predicted [17] and later on found experimentally in thin films and nanoparticles [18][19][20]. For technical applications of nanoparticles, homogeneous size distribution is of great importance

Kinetic lattice Monte-Carlo simulations on the ordering kinetics of free and supported FePt L1₀-nanoparticles

• Michael Müller and
• Karsten Albe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 40–46, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.5

• experimental values of 1.71 eV for Fe [16] and 1.35 eV for Pt [17], respectively. Due to a lack of reference values for the FePt alloy system, experimental data on Pt self-diffusion are used to determine the parameters ν0 and Emig. Ehrhart [17] reports an attempt frequency of ν0 = 4 × 1013 s−1 and an

• based on a modification of the Ising-type lattice Hamiltonian used before [10]. In order to validate the choice of attempt frequencies and migration barriers for atomic diffusion, the variation of ordering with annealing time in a FePt bulk alloy was compared to annealing experiments on sputtered thin

Single-pass Kelvin force microscopy and dC/dZ measurements in the intermittent contact: applications to polymer materials

• Sergei Magonov and
• John Alexander

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 15–27, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.2

• interactions can be performed in the intermittent contact regime in different environments. Such combination provides sensitive detection of the surface potential and capacitance gradient with nanometer-scale spatial resolution as it was verified on self-assemblies of fluoroalkanes and a metal alloy. The KFM

• -assembled F(CF2)14(CH2)20H–F14H20 structures (toroids, spirals and ribbons) and thin molecular layers were formed on these substrates. A piece of Bi/Sn alloy with a composition 40:60 was squeezed between two flat Si plates at 200 °C and chilled to room temperature. One of the plates was removed afterwards

• , and a shiny surface of the alloy sheet was examined by AFM. Polymer films were prepared by the spin-casting of a droplet of a dilute solution of the polymer on the substrates. Thin films of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and polymer blends PMMA with polystyrene (PS) and PS with poly(vinyl acetate

Review and outlook: from single nanoparticles to self-assembled monolayers and granular GMR sensors

• Alexander Weddemann,
• Inga Ennen,
• Anna Regtmeier,
• Camelia Albon,
• Annalena Wolff,
• Katrin Eckstädt,
• Nadine Mill,
• Michael K.-H. Peter,
• Jochen Mattay,
• Carolin Plattner,
• Norbert Sewald and
• Andreas Hütten

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 75–93, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.10

Flash laser annealing for controlling size and shape of magnetic alloy nanoparticles

• Damien Alloyeau,
• Christian Ricolleau,
• Cyril Langlois,
• Yann Le Bouar and
• Annick Loiseau

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 55–59, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.7

• ONERA / CNRS, BP 72, 92322 Châtillon Cedex, France 10.3762/bjnano.1.7 Abstract We propose an original route to prepare magnetic alloy nanoparticles with uniform size and shape by using nanosecond annealing under pulsed laser irradiation. As demonstrated here on CoPt nanoparticles, flash laser annealing

• laser irradiation. This technique is then very interesting for magnetic alloy nanoparticles studies and applications because it opens up a new way to fabricate size-controlled spherical nanoparticles with narrow size dispersion. Keywords: magnetic alloy nanoparticles; nanoparticle morphology

• the composition of bimetallic cluster which is a sine qua non condition for the use of this technique on magnetic alloy NPs. The conservation of NPs composition indicates that if metal atoms evaporate from CoPt NPs thin films during flash laser annealing, the evaporation rates of Co and Pt atoms are

Preparation and characterization of supported magnetic nanoparticles prepared by reverse micelles

• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Luyang Han,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Ute Kaiser and
• Paul Ziemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 24–47, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.5

• distances which are at least 6 times larger than the particle diameter. Focus is placed on FePt alloy nanoparticles which show a huge magnetic anisotropy in the L10 phase, however, this is still less by a factor of 3–4 when compared to the anisotropy of the bulk counterpart. A similar observation was also

• supports (section 1). The formation of metallic NPs by means of plasma etching was investigated in more detail by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy as described in section 2. Moreover, the structure of FePt alloy NPs was determined by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and their tendency for

• the upper and lower panels, respectively. The sizes and interparticle distances found are within the general range accessible by the micellar method: 2 nm ≤ particle diameters d ≤ 12 nm 20 nm ≤ interparticle distances D ≤ 140 nm These parameter ranges hold for alloy particles such as FePt or CoPt and