Colorimetric gas detection by the varying thickness of a thin film of ultrasmall PTSA-coated TiO₂ nanoparticles on a Si substrate

• Urmas Joost,
• Andris Šutka,
• Meeri Visnapuu,
• Aile Tamm,
• Meeri Lembinen,
• Mikk Antsov,
• Kathriin Utt,
• Krisjanis Smits,
• Ergo Nõmmiste and
• Vambola Kisand

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 229–236, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.25

• during spin coating was 3000 rpm and coating time was 0.5 min. The obtained NP-based precursor films were aged at room temperature under ambient conditions for four days. The purpose of this ageing was to allow the remaining solvent to evaporate slowly, in order to prevent the cracking of the films

• films were examined in air under ambient conditions. The optical constants given here are those measured at 633 nm wavelength. Using ellipsometry, the refractive index of the film was modelled between 1.2–4.5 eV at a wavelength of 633 nm. The three-layer stack (silicon substrate/silicon oxide/TiO2 film

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

• same protocol. All AFM characterizations were made in air and ambient conditions, operating in dynamic mode. NT-MDT NSG01 cantilevers of around 150 kHz and 5 N/m, and tips of 6 nm typical radius, were used. Two-dimensional Fourier transforms were obtained using Gwyddion software. The samples were

Sensitive detection of hydrocarbon gases using electrochemically Pd-modified ZnO chemiresistors

• Elena Dilonardo,
• Michele Penza,
• Marco Alvisi,
• Gennaro Cassano,
• Cinzia Di Franco,
• Francesco Palmisano,
• Luisa Torsi and
• Nicola Cioffi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 82–90, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.9

• advantageous properties such as good sensitivity under ambient conditions and easy preparation [25]. The fundamental process of the gas-sensing mechanism, holding the MOx-based sensing material at elevated temperatures above 300 °C, is the reaction of the surrounding gases with the oxygen of the MOx layer

Effect of Anderson localization on light emission from gold nanoparticle aggregates

• Mohamed H. Abdellatif,
• Marco Salerno,
• Gaser N. Abdelrasoul,
• Ioannis Liakos,
• Alice Scarpellini,
• Sergio Marras and
• Alberto Diaspro

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2013–2022, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.192

• AuNPs was then drop cast on the substrates in ambient conditions in order to obtain the films of AuNP aggregates. The substrates were cleaned by sonication for 20 min in a 1:1 mixture of ethanol/milli-Q water, prior to drop casting. Sample characterization The AuNP absorbance was characterized by a

Surface-enhanced infrared absorption studies towards a new optical biosensor

• Lothar Leidner,
• Julia Stäb,
• Jennifer T. Adam and
• Günter Gauglitz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1736–1742, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.166

• PBS, there is a further increase of the absorption band. Equilibrium is reached 15 min after PBS is introduced. The experiment was performed under ambient conditions (room temperature, optical path through humid air, relative humidity was not recorded). Air humidity is responsible for the sharp peaks

Active and fast charge-state switching of single NV centres in diamond by in-plane Al-Schottky junctions

• Christoph Schreyvogel,
• Vladimir Polyakov,
• Sina Burk,
• Helmut Fedder,
• Andrej Denisenko,
• Felipe Fávaro de Oliveira,
• Ralf Wunderlich,
• Jan Meijer,
• Verena Zuerbig,
• Jörg Wrachtrup and
• Christoph E. Nebel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1727–1735, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.165

• optically detected magnetic resonance [3] at ambient conditions. Due to these outstanding properties it can be used for applications such as single-spin magnetometry [4], imaging in life science [5], quantum computing and quantum cryptography [6][7] at room temperature, i.e., without the need for cryogenic

• fabrication of the in-plane diamond Schottky diode is finished, which is shown schematically in Figure 2a. The current–voltage characteristic of this diode, measured at ambient conditions, shows very good Schottky properties (Figure 2b). Results and Discussion Active charge-state switching As already

• -plane Al-Schottky diode measured at ambient conditions. Active charge state control of a single NV centre. At zero bias there is only a PL-background of the diamond surface (black spectrum) since the NV centre is in the nonfluorescent NV+ state due to the interaction with the two-dimensional hole

Fingerprints of a size-dependent crossover in the dimensionality of electronic conduction in Au-seeded Ge nanowires

• Maria Koleśnik-Gray,
• Gillian Collins,
• Justin D. Holmes and
• Vojislav Krstić

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1574–1578, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.151

• Ireland 10.3762/bjnano.7.151 Abstract We studied the electrical transport properties of Au-seeded germanium nanowires with radii ranging from 11 to 80 nm at ambient conditions. We found a non-trivial dependence of the electrical conductivity, mobility and carrier density on the radius size. In particular

• properties in the NWs of choice as function of their radius R to identify their different operation regimes. To this end, we carried out electrical characterization at ambient conditions of individual Au-seeded Ge NWs with R ranging from 11 to 80 nm (cf. Supporting Information File 1). By experimentally

• with 300 nm thermally grown SiO2 on top and contacted lithographically with Ag electrodes [14] in a four-point-probe configuration (Figure 1c). The Si backside of the chip was used as global backgate. For each NW, four-point current–voltage and transfer characteristics were taken under ambient

Development of adsorptive membranes by confinement of activated biochar into electrospun nanofibers

• Mehrdad Taheran,
• Mitra Naghdi,
• Satinder K. Brar,
• Emile Knystautas,
• Mausam Verma,
• Rao. Y. Surampalli and
• Jose. R. Valero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1556–1563, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.149

• concentration of 10 wt % and stirred until a clear solution was obtained. Activated biochar at ratios of 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2% (w/w) of the polymer was added to the solution and the mixture was stirred for 48 h. Nanofibrous membranes were fabricated via electrospinning under ambient conditions (T = 25 °C, RH

Photothermal effect of gold nanostar patterns inkjet-printed on coated paper substrates with different permeability

• Mykola Borzenkov,
• Anni Määttänen,
• Petri Ihalainen,
• Maddalena Collini,
• Elisa Cabrini,
• Giacomo Dacarro,
• Piersandro Pallavicini and
• Giuseppe Chirico

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1480–1485, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.140

• changes were observed after the printing of the GNS patterns (Figure 1f). In addition, the printed GNS patterns were not reflective but appeared as a matt dark surface as it was the case also with the semi-permeable substrate. The photothermal effect of printed GNS patterns under ambient conditions was

• increase achieved on the printed GNS patterns under ambient conditions compared to the values previously reported for GNS in aqueous solutions [17][30] is likely due to the absence of the thermal dissipation from the bulk solvent (water) that has a high thermal capacity compared to air (see the model

Effect of tetramethylammonium hydroxide/isopropyl alcohol wet etching on geometry and surface roughness of silicon nanowires fabricated by AFM lithography

• Siti Noorhaniah Yusoh and
• Khatijah Aisha Yaacob

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1461–1470, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.138

• units and proceeds to small units [22][23]. This approach is a well-known method for the fabrication of semiconductor devices in micro and nanoscale structures [24][25]. A biased AFM tip is operated under ambient conditions to oxidize the silicon surface locally and form an oxide mask [26]. Several

High performance Ce-doped ZnO nanorods for sunlight-driven photocatalysis

• Bilel Chouchene,
• Tahar Ben Chaabane,
• Lavinia Balan,
• Emilien Girot,
• Kevin Mozet,
• Ghouti Medjahdi and
• Raphaël Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1338–1349, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.125

• an aqueous Orange II solution (10 mg/L) at room temperature under solar light irradiation. In a typical experiment, the ZnO:Ce rods (30 mg) were dispersed in 30 mL Orange II aqueous solution and the suspension was magnetically stirred under ambient conditions for 80 min in the dark to reach an

• analysed using the BET (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller) method. All the optical measurements were performed at room temperature (20 ± 1°C) under ambient conditions. Absorption spectra of liquid samples were recorded on a Thermo Scientific Evolution 220 UV–visible spectrophotometer. DRS were recorded on a Shimadzu

On the pathway of cellular uptake: new insight into the interaction between the cell membrane and very small nanoparticles

• Claudia Messerschmidt,
• Daniel Hofmann,
• Anja Kroeger,
• Katharina Landfester,
• Volker Mailänder and
• Ingo Lieberwirth

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1296–1311, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.121

• content of approximately 0.1% and subsequently applied to a carbon coated TEM grid. Excess solution was blotted off and the sample was dried at ambient conditions. For automated analysis the TEM micrographs were processed using Gaussian blur filtering with 2 pixels radius, background subtraction

Diameter-driven crossover in resistive behaviour of heavily doped self-seeded germanium nanowires

• Stephen Connaughton,
• Maria Koleśnik-Gray,
• Richard Hobbs,
• Olan Lotty,
• Justin D. Holmes and
• Vojislav Krstić

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1284–1288, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.119

• four-point probe configuration [11]. Electrical characterization was carried out at ambient conditions. The geometry of each NW device (diameter size and channel length) was determined by electron microscopy [11][16]. From this the NW resistivity was extracted as function of diameter (Figure 1). Upon

Tunable longitudinal modes in extended silver nanoparticle assemblies

• Serene S. Bayram,
• Klas Lindfors and
• Amy Szuchmacher Blum

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1219–1228, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.113

• volume varied between 10 µL and 500 µL to trigger different degrees of assembly. The pH value of the AgNPs solution was set before the addition of the ligand. The solutions were then left in the dark under ambient conditions. Assemblies using the deuterated cysteamine ligand were carried out similarly

An ellipsometric approach towards the description of inhomogeneous polymer-based Langmuir layers

• Falko O. Rottke,
• Burkhard Schulz,
• Klaus Richau,
• Karl Kratz and
• Andreas Lendlein

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1156–1165, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.107

• performed in semicontact mode under ambient conditions. Silicon cantilevers NSG10-NT-14DT with a tip radius of approximately 5 nm were used. π–A isotherm (a) and compression–expansion curve (b) of PPDL-D4 recorded on water at room temperature. MMA is the mean molecular area per monomer unit. For the

Customized MFM probes with high lateral resolution

• Óscar Iglesias-Freire,
• Miriam Jaafar,
• Eider Berganza and
• Agustina Asenjo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1068–1074, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.100

• are well known to oxidize under ambient conditions, this affects a very superficial region of the coating of around 2 nm [21]. This oxide layer does not avoid obtaining good MFM imaging results even several months after deposition, with no measured loss of sensitivity and one then avoids the undesired

Generalized Hertz model for bimodal nanomechanical mapping

• Aleksander Labuda,
• Marta Kocuń,
• Waiman Meinhold,
• Deron Walters and
• Roger Proksch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 970–982, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.89

• imaging in ambient conditions has relied on the robustness of AM (tapping-mode) imaging, mostly attributable to the monotonicity of the amplitude versus distance relationship, for stable operation and topography tracking. For these two reasons, the authors generally recommend the use of AM-FM over the

Thickness dependence of the triplet spin-valve effect in superconductor–ferromagnet–ferromagnet heterostructures

• Daniel Lenk,
• Vladimir I. Zdravkov,
• Jan-Michael Kehrle,
• Günter Obermeier,
• Aladin Ullrich,
• Roman Morari,
• Hans-Albrecht Krug von Nidda,
• Claus Müller,
• Mikhail Yu. Kupriyanov,
• Anatolie S. Sidorenko,
• Siegfried Horn,
• Rafael G. Deminov,
• Lenar R. Tagirov and
• Reinhard Tidecks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 957–969, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.88

• solubility of Nb in Cu is extremely small under ambient conditions, the Nb–Ni phase diagram shows a certain solubility of Nb in Ni and vice versa [69]. In this case the bilayer with the thinnest Cu41Ni59 layer would show the largest reduction of mat. However, the opposite is observed. There may be several

Optical absorption signature of a self-assembled dye monolayer on graphene

• Tessnim Sghaier,
• Sylvain Le Liepvre,
• Céline Fiorini,
• Ludovic Douillard and
• Fabrice Charra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 862–868, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.78

• to the PTCDI solution. The STM images were recorded under ambient conditions (ca. 300 K) with a custom-made digital system by the immersion of a 250 μm mechanically cut tip of Pt/Ir (90/10) purchased from Goodfellow into a 5 μL droplet of solution. The scanning piezoelectric ceramic was calibrated by

Correlative infrared nanospectroscopic and nanomechanical imaging of block copolymer microdomains

• Benjamin Pollard and
• Markus B. Raschke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 605–612, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.53

• case due to the long chain lengths. We measure the nanomechanical properties of the copolymer film using several modes of scanning force microscopy. We use intermittent contact mode under ambient conditions to map the ordering of block copolymer domains [19]. This modality, especially its phase images

Orientation of FePt nanoparticles on top of a-SiO₂/Si(001), MgO(001) and sapphire(0001): effect of thermal treatments and influence of substrate and particle size

• Martin Schilling,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Zaoli Zhang,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Ute Kaiser and
• Ulf Wiedwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 591–604, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.52

• under ambient conditions is applied for measuring the size distribution of the NPs as well as their spatial arrangement. In this way, possible changes in NP diameter and hexagonal order before and after annealing could be monitored. For that purpose, AFM images were analyzed with the WSxM software [33

• influence of the substrate to subsequent annealing steps might be expected. FePt films on sapphire(0001) A 3 nm thick Fe48Pt52 film was deposited by PLD on sapphire(0001) at ambient temperature. After transfer under ambient conditions, the sample was first reduced in hydrogen plasma at 210 °C for 30 min

Length-extension resonator as a force sensor for high-resolution frequency-modulation atomic force microscopy in air

• Hannes Beyer,
• Tino Wagner and
• Andreas Stemmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 432–438, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.38

• limited to ultra-high vacuum conditions and cryogenic temperatures. Measurements under ambient conditions are influenced by variations of the dew point and thin water layers present on practically every surface, complicating stable imaging with high resolution. We demonstrate high-resolution imaging in

• air using a length-extension resonator operating at small amplitudes. An additional slow feedback compensates for changes in the free resonance frequency, allowing stable imaging over a long period of time with changing environmental conditions. Keywords: ambient conditions; drift compensation

• -high vacuum (UHV), it remains a challenge under ambient conditions. However, imaging samples in their natural environment down to the atomic level is key to understanding their properties. Several factors such as contamination of the surface, environmental changes, and water layers on the surface

Rigid multipodal platforms for metal surfaces

• Michal Valášek,
• Marcin Lindner and
• Marcel Mayor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 374–405, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.34

• with oxygen and can be handled even under ambient conditions in the laboratory before its surface functionalization with organosulfur compounds. The covalent bond between sulfur and gold gives rise to robust and reasonably conductive single-molecular junctions of adsorbed molecules on gold substrates

• under ambient conditions and decompose at elevated temperatures. One of the drawbacks of thiol monolayers is that the molecular plane of absorbed thiols is inclined to the surface. Another drawback appeared in complex molecular systems that form densely packed SAMs, where the close spatial arrangement

Hydration of magnesia cubes: a helium ion microscopy study

• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Johannes Schneider,
• Gilles R. Bourret and
• Oliver Diwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 302–309, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.28

• conditions. For example, for transient electronics it has become a major challenge to understand and control the factors of materials transformation in aqueous systems [1][2]. Under ambient conditions, nanostructured and highly dispersed metal oxides are instantaneously coated with thin water films. These

Chemiresistive/SERS dual sensor based on densely packed gold nanoparticles

• Sanda Boca,
• Cosmin Leordean,
• Simion Astilean and
• Cosmin Farcau

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2498–2503, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.259

• -like assemblies of gold NPs are formed by computer-controlled periodic movement and stopping of the substrate. The process is performed under ambient conditions at 22–25 °C and a humidity of 32–35%. Sample characterization: Optical extinction spectra were measured with a Jasco V-670 spectrophotometer