In situ characterization of nanoscale contaminations adsorbed in air using atomic force microscopy

• Jesús S. Lacasa,
• Lisa Almonte and
• Jaime Colchero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2925–2935, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.271

• , but is nevertheless quite important, and significantly determines AFM results and interpretation. In the present work we have shown how the presence of contamination in the tip–sample system can be detected and quantified using only AFM techniques. The methodology presented allows for simple in situ

• obtain precisely. In fact, we believe the precision and robustness of our methodology is due to the fact that its results do not depend on the tip size. We propose the method presented in this work as a simple, very precise and sensitive, and, very important, in situ characterization of the AFM tip

Charged particle single nanometre manufacturing

• Philip D. Prewett,
• Cornelis W. Hagen,
• Claudia Lenk,
• Steve Lenk,
• Marcus Kaestner,
• Tzvetan Ivanov,
• Ahmad Ahmad,
• Ivo W. Rangelow,
• Xiaoqing Shi,
• Stuart A. Boden,
• Alex P. G. Robinson,
• Dongxu Yang,
• Sangeetha Hari,
• Marijke Scotuzzi and
• Ejaz Huq

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2855–2882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.266

• reported in detail in the literature, with the demonstration of both post processing and in situ techniques for achieving, inter alia, high-purity metallic deposits [71][72][73] and will not be discussed further here. Another important issue is throughput, which although lower than that of optical or EUV

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

• formation and surface faceting could be the in situ formation of silver nitride, which directly decomposes to metallic silver and nitrogen gas [80]. This dynamic process of incorporation of nitrogen followed by its extrusion could lead to a granular structure of the silver surface. Materials

• Information File 1). This indicates that the competing oxidation/reduction reactions might play an important role for the in situ structuring of the silver surface. Increasing the plasma treatment time when using an air plasma up to 30 min results in an intact porous silver film however with a dense

Magnetic and luminescent coordination networks based on imidazolium salts and lanthanides for sensitive ratiometric thermometry

• Pierre Farger,
• Cédric Leuvrey,
• Mathieu Gallart,
• Pierre Gilliot,
• Guillaume Rogez,
• João Rocha,
• Duarte Ananias,
• Pierre Rabu and
• Emilie Delahaye

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2775–2787, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.259

• compounds were obtained depending on whether oxalic acid was added or not. When oxalic acid was not added in situ formation of the oxalate ligand has been observed. The peculiar behavior of these two ions compared to others can be explained by their place in the first part of the lanthanide series [43]. In

Size-selected Fe₃O₄–Au hybrid nanoparticles for improved magnetism-based theranostics

• Maria V. Efremova,
• Yulia A. Nalench,
• Eirini Myrovali,
• Anastasiia S. Garanina,
• Ivan S. Grebennikov,
• Polina K. Gifer,
• Maxim A. Abakumov,
• Marina Spasova,
• Makis Angelakeris,
• Alexander G. Savchenko,
• Michael Farle,
• Natalia L. Klyachko,
• Alexander G. Majouga and
• Ulf Wiedwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2684–2699, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.251

• . Details regarding the synthesis are given in the Experimental section. In brief, Fe3O4 was grown on either in situ synthesized Au NPs (samples MNP-6 and MNP-15) or presynthesized Au seeds (samples MNP-25 and MNP-44). In addition, by using three different solvents (phenyl ether, benzyl ether, 1-octadecene

• are pairwise connected and form hybrid NPs. The magnetite NPs formed using the in situ synthesized Au seeds have a spherical or poorly facetted shape (Figure 1A and 1B), while NPs obtained using presynthesized Au seeds are highly facetted (Figure 1C and 1D). The formation of highly facetted magnetite

• varied while holding the Fe3O4/Au phase volume ratio almost constant. Additionally, the crystallographic orientation of Fe3O4 and Au for samples MNP-15 (with in situ synthesized Au seeds) and MNP-25 (with presynthesized Au seeds) was evaluated using bright-field high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) imaging

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

• pass) of 1 cm. The MB dissolution was recirculated using a peristaltic pump to a standard quartz cuvette where the absorbance at 638 nm was measured in situ. In a typical experiment, a fixed ratio of 12.5:1 (volume/area) was used for all the samples while a potential bias of 1 V/(Ag|AgCl) was applied

• ) Schematic for the band diagram estimated from the measurements. a) Schematics of the experimental setup used for the PEC degradation of MB. b) UV–vis spectra for the initial MB solution and after 180 min of treatment. c) Relative MB concentration followed in situ with a 638 nm laser. d) Removal percentage

• peaks with an absorption maximum centered at 663 nm, for the fresh solution, presents a slight decrease when treated with the electrode produced with ta = 0.5 h, while for the rest of the electrodes the decrease is more significant. In the same figure, a dashed line shows the wavelength at which the in

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

• ) under pure Ar plasma conditions (Argon, Air Products 99.999%). The Au target had 99.99% purity, the rate of Au layer deposition was about 0.4 nm·s−1 and the incident power was 32 W. The thickness of the films was measured in situ by a quartz crystal microbalance. The films were subsequently annealed at

Effective sensor properties and sensitivity considerations of a dynamic co-resonantly coupled cantilever sensor

• Julia Körner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2546–2560, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.237

• Dynamic-mode cantilever sensors are used for many different applications which include the detection of smallest masses [1][2], in situ observation of the growth of biological films [3], detection of trace analytes in gases (”artificial nose”) [4] and the investigation of properties of novel (nano

Enhanced antineoplastic/therapeutic efficacy using 5-fluorouracil-loaded calcium phosphate nanoparticles

• Shanid Mohiyuddin,
• Saba Naqvi and
• Gopinath Packirisamy

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2499–2515, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.233

• the synthesis of CaP@5-FU NPs. Results and Discussion Synthesis of CaP@5-FU NPs The microemulsion reverse micelle method [12] was adopted for the effective synthesis of calcium phosphate nanoparticles. Furthermore, in situ loading of the anticancer drug (5-FU) during the synthesis yielded efficient

Nanocellulose: Recent advances and its prospects in environmental remediation

• Katrina Pui Yee Shak,
• Yean Ling Pang and
• Shee Keat Mah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2479–2498, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.232

Thickness-dependent photoelectrochemical properties of a semitransparent Co₃O₄ photocathode

• Malkeshkumar Patel and
• Joondong Kim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2432–2442, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.228

• ]. Existing studies have measured a photocurrent of 33.6 μA·cm−2 in 0.5 M Na2S on a mesoporous Co3O4 nanosheet grown through in situ transformation from hexagonal Co(OH)2 to spinel Co3O4 [18]. Hong et al. demonstrated a photocurrent of 0.4 mA·cm−2 from Co3O4 nanowire photocathodes, which could be enhanced to

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

• . Herein, Ag2CO3 nanoparticles were in situ formed on Bi2MoO6 microflowers to produce Ag2CO3/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures via a facile procedure. The morphologies, phases, chemical compositions, and optical properties of Ag2CO3/Bi2MoO6 were examined by multiple characterization techniques. The Ag2CO3/Bi2MoO6

• . Herein, we synthesized flower-like Ag2CO3/Bi2MoO6 heterostructures, in which Ag2CO3 nanoparticles were evenly anchored on Bi2MoO6 microflowers to construct novel hierarchical heterojunction photocatalysts by via in situ precipitation. The photocatalytic properties of Ag2CO3/Bi2MoO6 was measured regarding

Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2209–2235, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.207

• -dependent bandgap, decreasing from 1.47 nm for the smallest NCs to 1.36 eV to the largest ones. The NCs are free from any surface ligands and stable long enough for the preparation of solar cell electrodes [130]. The Cs2SnI6 HPs can be formed by in situ oxidizing unstable CsSnI3 with air oxygen [112] or

Electrospun one-dimensional nanostructures: a new horizon for gas sensing materials

• Muhammad Imran,
• Nunzio Motta and
• Mahnaz Shafiei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2128–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.202

A scanning probe microscopy study of nanostructured TiO₂/poly(3-hexylthiophene) hybrid heterojunctions for photovoltaic applications

• Laurie Letertre,
• Roland Roche,
• Olivier Douhéret,
• Hailu G. Kassa,
• Denis Mariolle,
• Nicolas Chevalier,
• Łukasz Borowik,
• Philippe Dumas,
• Benjamin Grévin,
• Roberto Lazzaroni and
• Philippe Leclère

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2087–2096, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.197

• photovoltaic process and the correlation to the nanoscale morphology. A down-shift of the vacuum level of the TiO2 surface upon grafting was measured by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM), evidencing the formation of a dipole at the TiO2/P3HT-COOH interface. Upon in situ illumination, a positive photovoltage

• surface potential, was measured, due to the formation of a bond dipole at the TiO2/P3HT-COOH interface. Upon in situ illumination, a positive photovoltage was observed, which is related to the accumulation of photogenerated holes in the P3HT layer. Along with the surface potential shift, a positive

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

• valence band (VB) spectra with high energy resolution [58]. They correlated the change in the DOS to the different types of nitrogen functionalities incorporated in the carbon matrix, using X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and in situ annealing. Specifically, it was shown that through annealing at

• site is not available for O adsorption. This mechanism was recently observed by Scardamaglia et al. with high-resolution synchrotron measurements in a fully in situ experiment [84] in which contamination was avoided. The authors functionalized single-layer graphene grown by CVD on iridium(111) using

Recent highlights in nanoscale and mesoscale friction

• Andrea Vanossi,
• Dirk Dietzel,
• Andre Schirmeisen,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Rémy Pawlak,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Marcin Kisiel,
• Shigeki Kawai and
• Nicola Manini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1995–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.190

• ][58][60][61]. Occasionally, AFM nanomanipulation is also combined with scanning electron microscopy, which then allows for a very defined interaction with the nanostructures and in situ monitoring of their movement [62][63][64]. An instructive example of the capabilities of such AFM-assisted

Electromigrated electrical optical antennas for transducing electrons and photons at the nanoscale

• Arindam Dasgupta,
• Mickaël Buret,
• Nicolas Cazier,
• Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil,
• Reinaldo Chacon,
• Kamal Hammani,
• Jean-Claude Weeber,
• Juan Arocas,
• Laurent Markey,
• Gérard Colas des Francs,
• Alexander Uskov,
• Igor Smetanin and
• Alexandre Bouhelier

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1964–1976, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.187

• electromigrating in situ the nanowire to create the optical tunneling gap antenna. Figure 6a,c,e illustrates the experiment with different waveguide geometries and gap orientations. In Figure 6a, the TiO2 waveguide is 85 nm thick and 1.5 μm wide, and the SEM image was taken before the electromigration of the

• confinement while maintaining micrometer-range propagation [69]. Excitation of the mode from free-space radiation is usually insured by the mediation of passive antenna couplers [70]. In the example shown in Figure 7, the 130 nm wide slot is directly excited in situ by the emission of the electron-fed antenna

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

• the G and D’ bands have been extracted from every Raman spectra. Error bars have been created using the standard deviation of the different parameters. TEM analyses The TEM used in this study was a FEI Tecnai G2 F20 operating at 120 kV. Note that this TEM was adapted previously to also enable in situ

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

• catalyst Raw diatomite was purified by acid-washing in 2 M HCl solution at 75 °C for 4 h according to [20]. The Fe3O4/diatomite composite was prepared through thermal decomposition and in situ loading [3]. Typically, 0.4 g of purified diatomite was first put into 60 mL TREG under magnetic stirring for 30

A differential Hall effect measurement method with sub-nanometre resolution for active dopant concentration profiling in ultrathin doped Si_1−xGe_x and Si layers

• Richard Daubriac,
• Emmanuel Scheid,
• Hiba Rizk,
• Richard Monflier,
• Sylvain Joblot,
• Rémi Beneyton,
• Pablo Acosta Alba,
• Sébastien Kerdilès and
• Filadelfo Cristiano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1926–1939, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.184

• thick SiGe test structure fabricated by CVD and uniformly doped in situ during growth. The developed method is finally applied to the investigation of dopant activation achieved by advanced annealing methods (including millisecond and nanosecond laser annealing) in two material systems: 6 nm thick

• accuracy of final calculated values. Then, we demonstrate the reliability of a complete DHE procedure on a dedicated SiGe test structure fabricated by CVD and uniformly doped in situ during growth. Finally, we will apply our DHE method to the investigation of dopant activation achieved by advanced

• surface roughness, we used ethanol instead of ultrapure water as rinsing solvent [28]. We performed multiple cycles of etching processes on in situ boron-doped Si layers (grown on top of Si substrates) with continuous monitoring of the removed thickness (by ellipsometry measurements) and the surface

Direct AFM-based nanoscale mapping and tomography of open-circuit voltages for photovoltaics

• Katherine Atamanuk,
• Justin Luria and
• Bryan D. Huey

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1802–1808, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.171

• during in situ illumination reveal local to mesoscale contributions to PV performance based on the order of magnitude variations in photovoltaic properties with distinct grains, at grain boundaries, and for sub-granular planar defects. Keywords: cadmium telluride (CdTe); photo-conductive AFM (pcAFM); PV

• interconnects [4][5], and tomographic AFM of photocurrents in polycrystalline solar cells during in situ illumination [6]. Standard photo-conductive AFM (pcAFM) employs a conducting probe, which serves as a positionable top electrode, to map currents upon illumination and/or biasing. With solar cells, the short

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

• -layer titania nanotubes (TNTs) fabricated using by an in situ voltage up-anodization process. The visible-light photocatalytic activity is improved by loading Ag onto the TNTs by NaBH4 reduction. Then, the TNTs containing Ag nanoparticles were modified with dodecanethiol (NDM) to create a hydrophobic

• ] created two-layer TNTs with a pear-like structure which has a smaller upper layer diameter (60–80 nm) and a larger lower layer diameter (180–200 nm) by a novel in situ voltage up-anodization method to prolong the release of drugs. Gulati et al. [16] used an altered periodic voltage in the anodization

• structural modification of TiO2 nanotubes. We decorated AgNPs onto two-layer TNTs fabricated by an in situ voltage up-anodization technique to improve the availability of visible light. In addition, we coated a hydrophobic organic layer (dodecanethiol) directly onto the hydrophilic surface of the nanotubes

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

• adsorption [43]. By combining in situ powder X-ray diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering measurements with simulation studies, Yang et al. argued that hydroxy groups within the pore channels selectively bind SO2 by the formation of hydrogen bonds that are reinforced by weaker phenyl C–H…O=S=O

Multimodal noncontact atomic force microscopy and Kelvin probe force microscopy investigations of organolead tribromide perovskite single crystals

• Yann Almadori,
• David Moerman,
• Jaume Llacer Martinez,
• Philippe Leclère and
• Benjamin Grévin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1695–1704, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.161

• ) at room temperature (RT) with in situ annealed Pt/Ir-coated silicon cantilevers (EFM, Nanosensors, resonance frequency in the 45–115 kHz range). Topographical imaging was performed in frequency modulation mode (FM-AFM) with negative frequency shifts of a few Hz and vibration amplitudes of a few tens

• ambient atmosphere during the cleaving process. Alternatively, one may also hypothesize that intrinsic defects are formed during the solution process crystal growth. Addressing the origin of these defects is beyond the scope of the current work, and will require development of in situ cleaving facilities