Friction force microscopy of tribochemistry and interfacial ageing for the SiO_x/Si/Au system

• Christiane Petzold,
• Marcus Koch and
• Roland Bennewitz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1647–1658, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.157

• cantilevers before use. A Au(111) single crystal (MaTeck GmbH, Jülich, Germany) was prepared by repeating a sputter–heating cycle (20 min Ar sputtering at 25 μA/1 keV followed by 1 h annealing at 850 °C) until a sharp (111) pattern was observed by low-energy electron diffraction (LEED). The n-Si(100) sample

• ). Prolonged stationary contact with Au(111) after sputtering resulted in activation of a Au/Si tip. After sliding this tip for 260 mm on Au(111), the tip was worn by 370 nm (Figure 6e). The largest wear was measured for tips that had been sliding against reactive Si(100); the Au/Si tip was worn by 530 nm

Interaction-tailored organization of large-area colloidal assemblies

• Silvia Rizzato,
• Elisabetta Primiceri,
• Anna Grazia Monteduro,
• Adriano Colombelli,
• Angelo Leo,
• Maria Grazia Manera,
• Roberto Rella and
• Giuseppe Maruccio

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1582–1593, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.150

• thick metal layers (gold films deposited by thermal evaporation and cobalt films deposited by magnetron sputtering) and successively removing the metal-capped spherical, nanoscale materials (termed “nanospheres” throughout the remainder of this article) by careful tape stripping with carbon tape in

Photoluminescence of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots in nematic liquid crystals in electric fields

• Margarita A. Kurochkina,
• Elena A. Konshina and
• Daria Khmelevskaia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1544–1549, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.145

• of two quartz substrates with a fixed gap of about 33 μm. Both substrates were coated by cathode sputtering with transparent conductive electrodes based on indium tin oxide. Orienting layers of rubbed polyimide and chromolane were used to obtain a planar or vertical orientation of the LC molecules

Nanoporous silicon nitride-based membranes of controlled pore size, shape and areal density: Fabrication as well as electrophoretic and molecular filtering characterization

• Axel Seidenstücker,
• Stefan Beirle,
• Fabian Enderle,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Othmar Marti and
• Alfred Plettl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1390–1398, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.131

• pillars are removed by grazing incidence sputtering with Ar ions. (f) Subsequent RIE results in nanopores. (g) Optional removal of the residual Cr layer with a liquid etchant. (h) Experiment: SEM micrograph of the cross-section of membrane A (cf. text) with nanopores. HRSEM micrographs of nanoporous

Semi-automatic spray pyrolysis deposition of thin, transparent, titania films as blocking layers for dye-sensitized and perovskite solar cells

• Hana Krýsová,
• Josef Krýsa and
• Ladislav Kavan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1135–1145, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.105

• prevent recombination on this surface [3][4][5]. Blocking layers (BLs) can be fabricated by spray pyrolysis [3][6], magnetron sputtering [7], electrochemical deposition [8] spin coating [9][10], dip coating [11] and atomic layer deposition (ALD) [3]. From the viewpoint of low-cost processing and easy

Effect of annealing treatments on CeO₂ grown on TiN and Si substrates by atomic layer deposition

• Silvia Vangelista,
• Rossella Piagge,
• Satu Ek and
• Alessio Lamperti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 890–899, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.83

• sputtering [7], e-beam [16], physical vapor deposition [17], chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [18], and atomic layer deposition (ALD). The latter has been explored by using different precursors, e.g., Ce(thd)4, Ce(iPrCp)3 and Ce(mmp)4) [19][20][21][22][23], obtaining as-deposited film with polycrystalline

• distribution as in [26]. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) investigation of the compositional depth profile of the CeO2/TiN/Si and CeO2/Si structures has been performed by means of a Cs+ ion beam (energy of 0.5 keV, ion current 38.0 nA) sputtering a 200 μm × 200 μm area, and a Ga+ ion

• evidence of TiN oxidation over almost its entire thickness. On the other side, no variation of the CeO profile is detectable apart from a tail broadening at increasing sputtering times, further evidence of CeO2/TiN interface instability. We note here that the instability of the CeO2/TiN interface imposes a

Facile chemical routes to mesoporous silver substrates for SERS analysis

• Elina A. Tastekova,
• Alexander Y. Polyakov,
• Anastasia E. Goldt,
• Alexander V. Sidorov,
• Alexandra A. Oshmyanskaya,
• Irina V. Sukhorukova,
• Dmitry V. Shtansky,
• Wolgang Grünert and
• Anastasia V. Grigorieva

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 880–889, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.82

• nm was deposited onto the 2.5 × 2.5 cm glass slides using magnetron sputtering. The chemical oxidation of silver was performed by vapors of 63% nitric acid. Then, the partially oxidized film was chemically reduced in an excess of sodium borohydride to AgI in the presence of or without PVP. The

• Technologies Q150T turbo-pumped sputter coater/carbon coater. A standard silver disk sputtering target (Stanford Materials, 99.99%) served as a source and the deposition rate was 2 nm/s. Then, the silver film was oxidized in the vapors of concentrated nitric acid (Reachim, purus). The silver film was fixed

Comparative study of antibacterial properties of polystyrene films with TiO_x and Cu nanoparticles fabricated using cluster beam technique

• Vladimir N. Popok,
• Cesarino M. Jeppesen,
• Peter Fojan,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Jan Hanuš and
• Ondřej Kylián

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 861–869, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.80

• [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In the current work, both Ti and Cu clusters are produced using magnetron sputtering in special cluster sources and deposited on substrates coated by a thin layer of polystyrene (PS). The focus is on the optimization of the nanocomposite formation using the cluster beam

• that the surface cluster density is not changed after the deposition of bacteria and the following washing of the samples over a few cycles of the experiments. Such example is presented in Figure 2 for Ti NPs. Ti clusters produced by magnetron sputtering were either left untreated or oxidized in two

• toluene. Thin films are coated on silicon and quartz substrates of 10 × 10 mm2 and annealed at 110 °C (above the glass transition temperature). The thickness of PS films was measured by ellipsometry and found to be 50 ± 5 nm. Ti clusters are produced by magnetron sputtering in a cluster source similar to

Combined pulsed laser deposition and non-contact atomic force microscopy system for studies of insulator metal oxide thin films

• Daiki Katsube,
• Hayato Yamashita,
• Satoshi Abo and
• Masayuki Abe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 686–692, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.63

• a combined system of pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) for observations of insulator metal oxide surfaces. With this system, the long-period iterations of sputtering and annealing used in conventional methods for preparing a metal oxide film surface are

• ][22]. For observations of surface atoms of metal oxides using NC-AFM and STM, it is critical to prepare atomically flat and clean surfaces. A standard method for obtaining clean surfaces of metal oxides is performing iterations of Ar+ sputtering and annealing at high temperatures [23][24][25][26][37

• ][41][42]. Different conditions of annealing and sputtering result in different types of surface reconstruction even under the same preparation conditions [26]. As an example of an insulator metal oxide, an Al2O3(0001) surface prepared using iterations of annealing and sputtering was imaged with atomic

Sensing behavior of flower-shaped MoS₂ nanoflakes: case study with methanol and xylene

• Maryam Barzegar,
• Masoud Berahman and
• Azam Iraji zad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 608–615, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.57

• , dispersed flower-shaped MoS2 nanoflakes in ethanol were first deposited on a 1 × 1 cm2 alumina wafer by spin coating. Then the gold microelectrodes were deposited on selective areas of the prepared, uniform, thin film through a comb-shaped shadow mask by sputtering. The mask was then lifted off and the

Towards 3D crystal orientation reconstruction using automated crystal orientation mapping transmission electron microscopy (ACOM-TEM)

• Aaron Kobler and
• Christian Kübel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 602–607, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.56

• starting point for the 3D reconstruction is an ACOM map containing experimental spot diffraction patterns originating from a Pd thin film deposited by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The orientation map was acquired on a Philips Tecnai F20 ST TEM instrument which was equipped with a NanoMegas

Electron interactions with the heteronuclear carbonyl precursor H₂FeRu₃(CO)₁₃ and comparison with HFeCo₃(CO)₁₂: from fundamental gas phase and surface science studies to focused electron beam induced deposition

• Ragesh Kumar T P,
• Paul Weirich,
• Lukas Hrachowina,
• Marc Hanefeld,
• Ragnar Bjornsson,
• Helgi Rafn Hrodmarsson,
• Sven Barth,
• D. Howard Fairbrother,
• Michael Huth and
• Oddur Ingólfsson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 555–579, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.53

Review: Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based nanoelectromechanical switches – materials solutions and operational conditions

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Jelena Kosmaca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Jana Andzane and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 271–300, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.29

• . Several CNT-based relays and switches have been fabricated using the bottom-up arrangement of CNTs, including dielectrophoresis [33], controlled growth of CNTs [34][37], dispersion coating [12][35][36], nanomanipulation [15][32] techniques and electron beam lithography/metal sputtering for the fabrication

• chemical vapour deposition (CVD)-synthesized or mechanically exfoliated graphene flakes to the desired position on the substrate, and photo- and electron-beam lithography and metal sputtering techniques for fabrication of the electrical contacts. A SiO2 sacrificial layer may be used for the release of

• tungsten target at room temperature has a Young’s modulus as high as 300 GPa, which is comparable to the widely used WNx protective coatings (300–390 GPa) [143]. 3T NEM switches were fabricated by a top-down approach using reactive ion sputtering over a SiO2 sacrificial layer, employing electron beam

Bombyx mori silk/titania/gold hybrid materials for photocatalytic water splitting: combining renewable raw materials with clean fuels

• Stefanie Krüger,
• Michael Schwarze,
• Otto Baumann,
• Christina Günter,
• Michael Bruns,
• Christian Kübel,
• Dorothée Vinga Szabó,
• Rafael Meinusch,
• Verónica de Zea Bermudez and
• Andreas Taubert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 187–204, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.21

• (Ag) NPs or TiO2 nano-grass films with AuNP for photocatalytic water splitting [29][30]. Matsuoka et al. sputtered TiO2 on a quartz glass plate by radiofrequency (RF) magnetron sputtering deposition followed by Pt deposition to make a TiO2 thin film photocatalyst for water splitting [31]. Finally

• electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) were performed on a JEOL JSM-6510 with a W filament operated at 15 kV and equipped with an Oxford Instruments INCAx-act detector. Dry samples were either ground and deposited as powders on a carbon glue pad followed by sputtering

Atomic layer deposition and properties of ZrO₂/Fe₂O₃ thin films

• Kristjan Kalam,
• Helina Seemen,
• Peeter Ritslaid,
• Mihkel Rähn,
• Aile Tamm,
• Kaupo Kukli,
• Aarne Kasikov,
• Joosep Link,
• Raivo Stern,
• Salvador Dueñas,
• Helena Castán and
• Héctor García

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 119–128, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.14

• reactive DC magnetron sputtering [7], also exhibited ferromagnetic properties. The undoped ZrO2 exhibited ferromagnetic properties mainly driven by oxygen vacancies. Monoclinic and tetragonal phases with similar amounts of oxygen vacancies were compared and ferromagnetism was only observed in the case of

Transition from silicene monolayer to thin Si films on Ag(111): comparison between experimental data and Monte Carlo simulation

• Alberto Curcella,
• Romain Bernard,
• Yves Borensztein,
• Silvia Pandolfi and
• Geoffroy Prévot

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 48–56, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.7

• form and the film becomes more and more inhomogeneous, resulting in a larger fraction of the surface uncovered by the thick Si islands. Experimental Experiments were performed in two UHV set-ups with 10−10 mbar base pressure. The Ag(111) sample was cleaned by series of cycles of Ar ion sputtering at

Nematic liquid crystal alignment on subwavelength metal gratings

• Irina V. Kasyanova,
• Artur R. Geivandov,
• Vladimir V. Artemov,
• Maxim V. Gorkunov and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 42–47, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.6

• values of the LC extraordinary refractive index. This information allows us to determine the average alignment of the LC molecules on the nanograting surface. Experimental We have fabricated aluminum films of ≈100 nm thickness on a glass substrate using the vacuum sputtering technique. The subwavelength

Study of the vertically aligned in-plane switching liquid crystal mode in microscale periodic electric fields

• Artur R. Geivandov,
• Mikhail I. Barnik,
• Irina V. Kasyanova and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 11–19, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.2

• = 3, 6 and 10 μm, respectively. The electrodes were made either of transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) or opaque chromium coating prepared by vacuum sputtering. The LC cells were filled with Merck E7 and ZLI 1957/5 LC mixtures with positive dielectric anisotropy. E7 is almost twice as viscous as ZLI

• transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) or opaque chromium coating prepared by vacuum sputtering. Using the electrodes substrate and another glass substrate without electrode we assembled a number of LC cells with varying thickness d from 2 to 4 μm. The LC alignment was made using a chromolane alignment layer spin

Refractive index sensing and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy using silver–gold layered bimetallic plasmonic crystals

• Somi Kang,
• Sean E. Lehman,
• Matthew V. Schulmerich,
• An-Phong Le,
• Tae-woo Lee,
• Stephen K. Gray,
• Rohit Bhargava and
• Ralph G. Nuzzo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2492–2503, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.249

• characteristics. The step coverage of e-beam evaporation, in particular, is poor since it only offers an essentially unidirectional collision of source material atoms with the substrate, with most of the metal being deposited on the surface and bottom of the nanoholes. Sputtering, in contrast, is a less-directed

• , thereby establishing it as an interesting platform for highly sensitive forms of plasmonic-based chemical sensing. (a) 3D and 2D schematic illustration of the full-3D and quasi-3D plasmonic crystals (PCs). To fabricate the metal films, sputtering was used for the full-3D PC and e-beam evaporating was used

Comparing postdeposition reactions of electrons and radicals with Pt nanostructures created by focused electron beam induced deposition

• Julie A. Spencer,
• Michael Barclay,
• Miranda J. Gallagher,
• Robert Winkler,
• Ilyas Unlu,
• Yung-Chien Wu,
• Harald Plank,
• Lisa McElwee-White and
• D. Howard Fairbrother

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2410–2424, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.240

• was exposed to Ar+ sputtering. In addition to the loss of adventitious carbon, the Cl signal increased, causing a concomitant decrease in the Pt/Cl ratio from 5.2 to 2.8. This sputtered deposit was subsequently re-exposed to AH, which again led to a decrease in the Cl signal. After an additional 7.2

• × 103 L AH exposure, the AES was dominated by Pt (Pt/Cl 10:1. Another period of Ar+ sputtering led to another significant increase in the Cl signal (Pt/Cl ratio of 2.2). Effect of atomic oxygen (AO) on FEBID deposits created from MeCpPtMe3 Previous studies have shown that FEBID structures created from

• underneath. The white outlines drawn in (f) and (g) are a guide to the eye to show the location of the deposit. AES for a deposit created from cis-Pt(CO)2Cl2 (top spectrum) and then subjected to alternating treatments with atomic hydrogen (PH2 ≈ 5 × 10−7 Torr), and argon ion sputtering (PAr ≈ 5 × 10−8 Torr

Robust procedure for creating and characterizing the atomic structure of scanning tunneling microscope tips

• Sumit Tewari,
• Koen M. Bastiaans,
• Milan P. Allan and
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2389–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.238

• controlled by the overlap of the electronic wave functions of tip and surface. Many techniques are available for preparing atomically clean sample surfaces, including repeated cycles of sputtering and annealing in the case of metals, by fresh cleavage in the case of suitable materials, and by high

• cleaned in situ using, e.g., Ar ion sputtering or electron bombardment [14], but this may disrupt the crystalline structure, which cannot be repaired by annealing since this will yield a blunt tip. For all these methods, at the atomic scale the tip structure is poorly controlled and could even have

• Au surface was prepared in situ by several cycles of argon sputtering at 1 keV at 5 · 10−5 mbar for 15 min and annealing at 600 K for 1 min to ensure a clean crystalline surface. The STM tips used in the experiments were commercial Unisoku platinum–iridium (PtIr) tips having a tip radius of less than

Ta₂N₃ nanocrystals grown in Al₂O₃ thin layers

• Krešimir Salamon,
• Maja Buljan,
• Iva Šarić,
• Mladen Petravić and
• Sigrid Bernstorff

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2162–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.215

• isolated nitride NPs within thin dielectric layers. An emphasis is placed here on the control of size and spatial arrangement of NPs, which should then ensure the desired optical properties. This is achieved by using reactive magnetron sputtering and the deposition procedure we already used for the self

• by using the reactive magnetron sputtering deposition technique under conditions that implied a high nitrogen fraction in sputtering gas mixture and post-deposition annealing [23]. We found that the Ta2N3 phase has metallic properties, which makes it a possible candidate for the LSPR applications

• (nitrogen fraction in sputtering gas mixture pN2 = 0.2) with a total gas pressure of 0.47 Pa. Ta (99.95% purity) and Al2O3 (99.995% purity) targets were used in dc (15 W) and rf (140 W) operated magnetrons, respectively. The deposition rates were 0.31 nm/s for the Ta target and 0.19 nm/s for the Al2O3

Advances and challenges in the field of plasma polymer nanoparticles

• Andrei Choukourov,
• Pavel Pleskunov,
• Daniil Nikitin,
• Valerii Titov,
• Artem Shelemin,
• Mykhailo Vaidulych,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Pavel Solař,
• Jan Hanuš,
• Jaroslav Kousal,
• Ondřej Kylián,
• Danka Slavínská and
• Hynek Biederman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2002–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.200

• plasma polymerization of volatile monomers or via radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering of conventional polymers. The formation of hydrocarbon, fluorocarbon, silicon- and nitrogen-containing plasma polymer nanoparticles as well as core@shell nanoparticles based on plasma polymers is discussed with a

• focus on the development of novel nanostructured surfaces. Keywords: gas aggregation cluster source; nanocomposite; nanoparticles; plasma polymer; sputtering; Review Historical background “A macromolecule is a molecule of high relative molecular mass, the structure of which essentially comprises the

• the production of metal NPs by vacuum thermal evaporation with subsequent condensation of atomic metal vapours on a cool buffer gas and later thermal evaporation was replaced by magnetron sputtering [41]. At least one work investigated the formation of polymeric NPs by thermal evaporation of poly(N

Bi-layer sandwich film for antibacterial catheters

• Gerhard Franz,
• Florian Schamberger,
• Hamideh Heidari Zare,
• Sara Felicitas Bröskamp and
• Dieter Jocham

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1982–2001, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.199

• the intended manner. 3. Simple deposition techniques, such as impregnation and dipping, do not generate a film that steadily sticks on the substrate. Other methods, such as sputtering and evaporation of silver, only affect the exterior of the catheter. 4. In addition to its antibacterial potential

Intercalation of Si between MoS₂ layers

• Rik van Bremen,
• Qirong Yao,
• Soumya Banerjee,
• Deniz Cakir,
• Nuri Oncel and
• Harold J. W. Zandvliet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1952–1960, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.196

• reveal no noteworthy differences. (4) Spatial maps of dI/dz reveal that the surface exhibits a uniform work function and a lattice constant of 3.16 Å. (5) X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy measurements reveal that sputtering of the MoS2/Si substrate does not lead to a decrease, but an increase of the

• silicon evaporator was calibrated by depositing a sub-monolayer amount of Si on a Ge(001) substrate. The Ge(001) surface was cleaned by applying several cycles of Ar ion sputtering and annealing. After deposition and mild annealing at a temperature of 450–500 K, the Ge(001) substrate was inserted into the

• and 1.18 eV, respectively. The ratios of the areas of the doublet peaks were also fixed. During sputtering the pressure is increased to 3 × 10−8 mbar by leaking in Ar gas while the pressure around the filament in the differentially pumped argon gas chamber increased to 1 × 10−4 mbar. The sample was