Dual-heterodyne Kelvin probe force microscopy

• Benjamin Grévin,
• Fatima Husainy,
• Dmitry Aldakov and
• Cyril Aumaître

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2023, 14, 1068–1084, doi:10.3762/bjnano.14.88

• measurement, quantities that are directly proportional to the Fourier coefficients of the time-periodic surface photovoltage. Unfortunately, the translation of this promising technique from ambient conditions – where it has proven its worth – to ultra-high vacuum poses significant challenges. This is mainly

• AFM under ultra-high vacuum in a slightly different way. We demonstrate that the Fourier spectrum (modulus and phase coefficients) of the time-periodic electrostatic surface potential generated under optical (or electrical) pumping can be probed, by exploiting a double heterodyne frequency mixing

• implemented on a non-contact AFM operating under ultra-high vacuum, where the high resonance quality factors should now become an advantage and provide greater sensitivity. In the next section, we will provide some details on the technical implementation of DHe-KPFM on an nc-AFM. We will then demonstrate its

Intermodal coupling spectroscopy of mechanical modes in microcantilevers

• Ioan Ignat,
• Bernhard Schuster,
• Jonas Hafner,
• MinHee Kwon,
• Daniel Platz and
• Ulrich Schmid

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2023, 14, 123–132, doi:10.3762/bjnano.14.13

• ; Introduction Atomic force microscopy has established itself as one of the most powerful tools in nanotechnology. With meticulous setups amassing techniques such as ultra high vacuum, cryogenic temperatures, and CO-terminated tips, it is able to create a wonderful vista of surfaces, not missing the atoms for

• that can even break this quantum barrier by redirecting noise from one quadrature to another [9][10][11]. Yet, there is even opportunity in revitalising the accessibility of standard AFM, as performing experiments at cryogenic temperatures and under ultra-high vacuum [12][13] requires years of

Topographic signatures and manipulations of Fe atoms, CO molecules and NaCl islands on superconducting Pb(111)

• Carl Drechsel,
• Philipp D’Astolfo,
• Jung-Ching Liu,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Rémy Pawlak and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 1–9, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.1

• Sample preparation The Pb(111) single crystal, purchased from Mateck GmbH, was cleaned by several sputtering and annealing cycles in ultra-high vacuum (UHV). CO dosing on the cold substrate was done in the microscope chamber by increasing the pressure via a leak valve up to p ≈ 1 × 10−7 mbar for one

Determining amplitude and tilt of a lateral force microscopy sensor

• Oliver Gretz,
• Alfred J. Weymouth,
• Thomas Holzmann,
• Korbinian Pürckhauer and
• Franz J. Giessibl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 517–524, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.42

• , Germany) operating in ultra-high vacuum at 5.6 K equipped with a qPlus sensor [25]. The sensor was equipped with an etched tungsten tip, which was repeatedly poked into a Cu(111) surface to generate well-defined tip apex configurations. Cu(111) was cleaned by standard sputtering and annealing cycles

TiO_x/Pt₃Ti(111) surface-directed formation of electronically responsive supramolecular assemblies of tungsten oxide clusters

• Marco Moors,
• Yun An,
• Agnieszka Kuc and
• Kirill Yu. Monakhov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 203–212, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.16

• result of thermal evaporation of WO3 powder on the complex TiOx/Pt3Ti(111) surfaces under ultra-high vacuum conditions. The physisorbed tritungsten nano-oxides were found as isolated single units located on the metallic attraction points or as supramolecular self-assemblies with a W3O9-capped hexagonal

• ]. One possibility to achieve this is to create substrate surfaces, whose characteristics would give rise to the nanostructured metal-oxide self-assembly formation. Herein, we demonstrate the potential of this approach using thermal evaporation of WO3 powder under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) on ultrathin

Imaging of SARS-CoV-2 infected Vero E6 cells by helium ion microscopy

• Natalie Frese,
• Patrick Schmerer,
• Martin Wortmann,
• Matthias Schürmann,
• Matthias König,
• Michael Westphal,
• Friedemann Weber,
• Holger Sudhoff and
• Armin Gölzhäuser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 172–179, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.13

• much lower compared to the energy of sputter-deposited metals. However, it is possible that this unintended, but sometimes useful, carbon deposition can be reduced by HIM imaging in ultra-high vacuum [34][35][36]. The cell structures shown in the HIM images of Figure 3a are sharply resolved over tens

Bulk chemical composition contrast from attractive forces in AFM force spectroscopy

• Dorothee Silbernagl,
• Media Ghasem Zadeh Khorasani,
• Natalia Cano Murillo,
• Anna Maria Elert and
• Heinz Sturm

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 58–71, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.5

• achieved a lateral atomic resolution, but also enabled the identification of chemical structures down to single atoms. For these remarkable results, the sample has to be very smooth (ideally a crystal plane) and preferably free of an ambient water film (ultra-high vacuum AFM, UHV AFM). Again, these

Functional nanostructures for electronics, spintronics and sensors

• Anatolie S. Sidorenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1704–1706, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.152

• technology including lift-off electron-beam lithography followed by ultra-high-vacuum deposition of materials that was used for fabrication of nanostructured quasi-1D chains of Josephson junctions. This was followed by the work of Mohammed et al. [12] who presented a smart vacuum technology for the design of

Adsorption and self-assembly of porphyrins on ultrathin CoO films on Ir(100)

• Feifei Xiang,
• Tobias Schmitt,
• Marco Raschmann and
• M. Alexander Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1516–1524, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.134

• paper is to find the adsorption geometry of the two molecules, to demonstrate electronic decoupling from the supporting Ir substrate, and to reveal the relevant energetic hierarchy that may lead to self-assembly on the particular oxide surfaces. Experimental All experiments were performed in ultra-high

• vacuum (UHV) at a base pressure of 8 × 10−11 mbar. STM images were taken using a custom-built low-temperature UHV STM operated at liquid-nitrogen temperature (80 K). We used etched tungsten tips and the bias voltage is the potential of the sample with respect to the tip. Co-DPP (1, PorphyChem SAS, 98

An atomic force microscope integrated with a helium ion microscope for correlative nanoscale characterization

• Santiago H. Andany,
• Gregor Hlawacek,
• Stefan Hummel,
• Charlène Brillard,
• Mustafa Kangül and
• Georg E. Fantner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1272–1279, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.111

• of the techniques should have sufficient overlap so that a meaningful correlation can be established in space and time. One requirement for compatibility is that the AFM can operate in an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) environment, a prerequisite for the HIM. This requirement puts additional restrictions on

Proximity effect in [Nb(1.5 nm)/Fe(x)]₁₀/Nb(50 nm) superconductor/ferromagnet heterostructures

• Yury Khaydukov,
• Sabine Pütter,
• Laura Guasco,
• Roman Morari,
• Gideok Kim,
• Thomas Keller,
• Anatolie Sidorenko and
• Bernhard Keimer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1254–1263, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.109

• 1000 °C in ultra high vacuum for 2–3 h. A 50 nm thick Nb layer was deposited at a typical rate of 0.6 Å/s and a substrate temperature of TNb = 800 °C for samples s1 to s5 and at TNb = 33 °C for sample s6. Subsequently, the substrate temperature was decreased to TSL = 30–100 °C (see below Table 1) and a

Evolution of Ag nanostructures created from thin films: UV–vis absorption and its theoretical predictions

• Robert Kozioł,
• Marcin Łapiński,
• Paweł Syty,
• Damian Koszelow,
• Wojciech Sadowski,
• Józef E. Sienkiewicz and
• Barbara Kościelska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 494–507, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.40

• spectrometer with 128-channel collector). XPS measurements were performed at room temperature in ultra-high vacuum (ca. 10−9 mbar). The photoelectrons were excited by an Mg Kα X-ray source. The X-ray anode was operated at 15 keV and 300 W. An Omicron Argus hemispherical electron analyzer with a round aperture

Atomic-resolution imaging of rutile TiO₂(110)-(1 × 2) reconstructed surface by non-contact atomic force microscopy

• Daiki Katsube,
• Shoki Ojima,
• Eiichi Inami and
• Masayuki Abe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 443–449, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.35

• reduction in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) [2][20]. Several structural models for the (1 × 2) surface have been proposed [10][21][22][23][24]. Onishi and Iwasawa proposed a symmetric Ti2O3 model (Figure 1a) based on STM measurements [10], while Wang et al. proposed an asymmetric Ti2O3 model (Figure 1b) similar to

A review of demodulation techniques for multifrequency atomic force microscopy

• David M. Harcombe,
• Michael G. Ruppert and
• Andrew J. Fleming

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 76–91, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.8

• particularly suited to intermittent-contact AFM [9] when tip–sample contact is gentle. Environmental damping has a large effect on the quality factor (Q) of the cantilever. Values can range from as low as Q ≈ 1 in liquid [10], up to Q ≈ 10,000 in ultra-high vacuum [11]. This affects the mechanical bandwidth of

Synthesis of nickel/gallium nanoalloys using a dual-source approach in 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazole ionic liquids

• Ilka Simon,
• Julius Hornung,
• Juri Barthel,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Maik Finze,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1754–1767, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.171

• -chlorobutane to yield first [BMIm][Cl], which was further reacted with LiNTf2 to give [BMIm][NTf2] [74][75]. The IL was dried under ultra-high vacuum (10−7 mbar) at 80 °C for three days. [EMIm][B(CN)4] and [EMIm][BF(CN)3] was synthesized similarly by metathesis reaction of [EMIm][Br] with K[B(CN)4] and K[BF(CN

Pure and mixed ordered monolayers of tetracyano-2,6-naphthoquinodimethane and hexathiapentacene on the Ag(100) surface

• Robert Harbers,
• Timo Heepenstrick,
• Dmitrii F. Perepichka and
• Moritz Sokolowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1188–1199, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.118

• :1 stoichiometry. Experimental The experiments were conducted in an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber with a base pressure of 10−10 mbar. The chamber was equipped with a variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscope STM (type RHK UHV 300) from RHK Technologies and a multi-channel plate (MCP) low

Polymorphic self-assembly of pyrazine-based tectons at the solution–solid interface

• Achintya Jana,
• Puneet Mishra and
• Neeladri Das

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 494–499, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.50

• highlighted the immense potential of molecules as a component of functional electronics [1][2], spintronics [3][4][5] and mechanical [6] devices. However, most of these studies employed extreme experimental conditions such as ultra-low temperatures, and ultra-high vacuum, which are far from any practically

Intuitive human interface to a scanning tunnelling microscope: observation of parity oscillations for a single atomic chain

• Sumit Tewari,
• Jacob Bakermans,
• Christian Wagner,
• Federica Galli and
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 337–348, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.33

• –machine augmented system in which the operator and the machine are connected by a real-time simulation. Here, a 3D motion control system is integrated with an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). Moreover, we coupled a real-time molecular dynamics (MD) simulation

• ultra-high vacuum STM with the integration of a 3D motion control system and a real-time molecular dynamic simulation. This human–machine augmented system where the operator can become part of the experiment and make adaptable STM tip trajectories based on the visual feedback from simulation, provides a

Nitrous oxide as an effective AFM tip functionalization: a comparative study

• Taras Chutora,
• Bruno de la Torre,
• Pingo Mutombo,
• Jack Hellerstedt,
• Jaromír Kopeček,
• Pavel Jelínek and
• Martin Švec

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 315–321, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.30

• of a bent adsorption geometry of the N2O on the tip and more electrostatic charge relative to CO. These observations were corroborated by DFT calculations. Methods Experimental Experiments were carried out in an ultra-high vacuum STM/AFM system (Createc) operated at 5 K. The Au(111) sample (Mateck

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

• Electronics) scanning Auger nanoprobe operated at an acceleration voltage of 20 keV and a current of 10 nA. Sputtering was carried out under ultra-high vacuum (5 × 10−9 Torr), with an argon gun operated at 250 eV and 500 nA. The UV–vis spectra of the silver films on glass substrate were recorded by a Thermo

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

• simulation (structure and diameter close to that of (11,5)). The FcETG2 molecule grafted at the surface of the SWCNT model was oriented to simulate a ferrocene group in a π-stacking interaction (see below the molecular dynamics simulation) since the analysis is done in ultra-high vacuum. The distance between

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

• 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

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

• were carried out in an ultra-high vacuum VG ESCALAB250Xi electron spectrometer. The magnetic properties of the samples were performed by a Lakeshore 7404 vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The BET measurements of the samples were collected by a Micromeritics ASAP 2020 surface area and porosimetry

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

• ] and [BMIm][NTf2] were synthesized by reacting 1-methylimidazole with 1-chlorobutane to yield [BMIm][Cl]. The [BMIm][Cl] reacted with HBF4 or LiNTf2 to give [BMIm][BF4] or [BMIm][NTf2] [64]. The IL was dried under ultra-high vacuum (10−7 mbar) at 70 °C for several days. The characterization was carried

Know your full potential: Quantitative Kelvin probe force microscopy on nanoscale electrical devices

• Amelie Axt,
• Ilka M. Hermes,
• Victor W. Bergmann,
• Niklas Tausendpfund and
• Stefan A. L. Weber

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1809–1819, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.172

• , most studies comparing AM- to FM-KPFM methods have used samples exhibiting a work function contrast [23][24][27]. For example, Zerweck et al. have observed a superior spatial and quantitative resolution of FM-KPFM as compared to AM-KPFM on a gold and potassium chloride interface in ultra-high vacuum