Enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting performance using morphology-controlled BiVO₄ with W doping

• Xin Zhao and
• Zhong Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2640–2647, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.264

• . Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting generates hydrogen through chemical reactions assisted by photo-generated electrons and holes in semiconductor materials [1][2][3]. An ideal semiconductor for PEC water splitting requires a small bandgap to capture enough solar light, a high conversion efficiency, a good

• chemical reactions and enhance light capture due to multiple light scattering within the nanostructures [11][12][13]. Many research works have been reported for enhanced PEC water splitting performances using nanostructured BiVO4 [5][6][12][14][15][16][17][18][19]. However, most of them require complex

Interactions of low-energy electrons with the FEBID precursor chromium hexacarbonyl (Cr(CO)₆)

• Jusuf M. Khreis,
• João Ameixa,
• Filipe Ferreira da Silva and
• Stephan Denifl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2583–2590, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.258

• the desired metal, with the formation of non-defined deposits on the surface. When high-energy electrons interact with the surface, a cascade of low-energy electrons (LEE) and backscattered electrons are generated. Many chemical reactions can be triggered by those secondary electrons with an energy

• backscattered electrons with the precursor molecules. LEE initiate chemical reactions on the surface by dissociative electron attachment (DEA) and dissociative electron ionization, as well as neutral dissociation. Those processes need to be well understood, in order to maximise the quality of deposited metal as

PTFE-based microreactor system for the continuous synthesis of full-visible-spectrum emitting cesium lead halide perovskite nanocrystals

• Chengxi Zhang,
• Weiling Luan,
• Yuhang Yin and
• Fuqian Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2521–2529, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.252

• chemical reactions and microreactor design, QDs of different characteristics can be synthesized. In addition, microreactor systems with microchannels made from poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) capillaries provide a stable environment for the chemical reactions involving air-sensitive materials. Currently

Laser-assisted fabrication of gold nanoparticle-composed structures embedded in borosilicate glass

• Nikolay Nedyalkov,
• Mihaela Koleva,
• Nadya Stankova,
• Rosen Nikov,
• Mitsuhiro Terakawa,
• Yasutaka Nakajima,
• Lyubomir Aleksandrov and
• Reni Iordanova

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2454–2463, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.244

• semiconductor by varying the particle concentration [9][10][11]. Any further progress regarding detailed studies of or in finding novel applications for these materials is still hampered by the lack of efficient fabrication techniques. Although various techniques, such as chemical reactions, ion implantation

Angstrom-scale flatness using selective nanoscale etching

• Takashi Yatsui,
• Hiroshi Saito and
• Katsuyuki Nobusada

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2181–2185, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.217

• new properties such as second harmonic generation [4], dipole-forbidden transitions [5], and indirect band transitions [6][7][8]. Because the ONF can achieve dipole-forbidden transitions, we can create selective chemical reactions that occur only where the ONF has been generated. Using this concept

Evaluating the toxicity of TiO₂-based nanoparticles to Chinese hamster ovary cells and Escherichia coli: a complementary experimental and computational approach

• Alicja Mikolajczyk,
• Natalia Sizochenko,
• Ewa Mulkiewicz,
• Anna Malankowska,
• Michal Nischk,
• Przemyslaw Jurczak,
• Seishiro Hirano,
• Grzegorz Nowaczyk,
• Adriana Zaleska-Medynska,
• Jerzy Leszczynski,
• Agnieszka Gajewicz and
• Tomasz Puzyn

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2171–2180, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.216

• alters the rate of chemical reactions, when exposed to light (photocatalyst) [1]. TiO2-based NPs have already found wide applications as efficient photocatalysts for sterilization, sanitation, air and water purification systems, hydrogen production by water splitting, and dye-sensitized solar cells [1

Ester formation at the liquid–solid interface

• Nguyen T. N. Ha,
• Thiruvancheril G. Gopakumar,
• Nguyen D. C. Yen,
• Carola Mende,
• Lars Smykalla,
• Maik Schlesinger,
• Roy Buschbeck,
• Tobias Rüffer,
• Heinrich Lang,
• Michael Mehring and
• Michael Hietschold

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2139–2150, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.213

• supported. Keywords: on-surface reaction; scanning tunneling microscopy; trimesic acid; undecan-1-ol; Introduction On-surface reactions are a widespread class of chemical reactions taking place on a surface or at an interface involving active participation of two-dimensional molecular entities. This

• ambient conditions [27]. Molecular mixture at solid−liquid interfaces could possibly initiate chemical reactions and be monitored in situ with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Metal complexation reactions, polymerizations [28][29][30] and photochemical dimerization [31] are shown to be initiated at

• the solid–liquid interface. Initial efforts have been made to perform chemical reactions leading to covalently stabilized adlayers at metal crystal/UHV interfaces [2][10][11][12]. However, the size of covalently linked domains is often limited in UHV due to low diffusion of the components forming the

In situ controlled rapid growth of novel high activity TiB₂/(TiB₂–TiN) hierarchical/heterostructured nanocomposites

• Jilin Wang,
• Hejie Liao,
• Yuchun Ji,
• Fei Long,
• Yunle Gu,
• Zhengguang Zou,
• Weimin Wang and
• Zhengyi Fu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2116–2125, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.211

• and TiN, respectively. Additionally, a thermogravimetric and differential scanning calorimetry analyzer (TG-DSC) comparison analysis indicated that the as-synthesized samples presented better chemical activity than that of commercial TiB2 powders. Finally, the possible chemical reactions as well as

• samples. Moreover, based on the obtained experimental results and previous work, the possible chemical reactions as well as the appropriate growth mechanism of the TiB2/(TiB2–TiN) hierarchical/heterostructured nanocomposites were also discussed. Results and Discussion Figure 1a,b gives the typical field

• TiB2/(TiB2–TiN) samples could be effectively controlled through the in situ reaction coupling self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (RC-SHS) method. The results were found to be in agreement with that of our previous studies [9][10][14]. Chemical reactions and growth mechanism During the growth

Fabrication of carbon nanospheres by the pyrolysis of polyacrylonitrile–poly(methyl methacrylate) core–shell composite nanoparticles

• Dafu Wei,
• Youwei Zhang and
• Jinping Fu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1897–1908, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.190

• substantially, which is very important to industrial manufacturing. Yang et al. obtained carbon nanospheres with a diameter of 170–190 nm from PAN particles synthesized by a soap-less emulsion polymerization method [35]. A series of complicated chemical reactions, including oxidization, dehydrogenation

Process-specific mechanisms of vertically oriented graphene growth in plasmas

• Subrata Ghosh,
• Shyamal R. Polaki,
• Niranjan Kumar,
• Sankarakumar Amirthapandian,
• Mohamed Kamruddin and
• Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1658–1670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.166

• have observed the effect of various process parameters such as carrier gas, nature of substrate, total pressure and microwave power on the growth of VGNs. However, the plasma chemistry and chemical reactions with the substrate surface during growth are still a matter of study [9][27][28][29][30][31][32

• . Therefore, the electron gas acts as an effective negative bias field to generate high-energy ions. The electrons and ions interact with other plasma species through chemical reactions that lead to molecular decomposition and transformative re-assembly [57]. The species that influence the growth of carbon

• maintained constant. Hence, this result is related to the increased mobility of surface atoms such that the rates of adsorption and surface chemical reactions become higher at high temperatures; this reduces the surface energy of the substrate. Similar transformations of islands to VGNs have also been

Parylene C as a versatile dielectric material for organic field-effect transistors

• Tomasz Marszalek,
• Maciej Gazicki-Lipman and
• Jacek Ulanski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1532–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.155

• with the accompanying chemical reactions, is presented in Figure 1. There is a number of advantages of the parylene technology. First of all, being a gas-phase diffusion-controlled process, it yields smooth pinhole-free conformal coatings with excellent penetration abilities. Second, there are several

• parylene layer, assures a sufficient protection of OFETs against oxygen and water, which is especially important for transistors with n-type channels. Schematic representation of the deposition process of Parylene C with the respective chemical reactions. Reprinted with permission from [28], copyright 2016

Spin-chemistry concepts for spintronics scientists

• Konstantin L. Ivanov,
• Alexander Wagenpfahl,
• Carsten Deibel and
• Jörg Matysik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1427–1445, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.143

• Introduction In general, chemical reactions are discussed in terms of thermodynamics: reaction enthalpy, reaction entropy and free energy. It is also recognized that steric and charge effects can lead to kinetic control of the reaction dynamics by introduction of activation energies. In some cases, chemical

• chemistry as a new field, which was initially mainly run by physical organic chemists as well as EPR and NMR spectroscopists. The discovery of CIDEP and CIDNP was followed by reports of MFE [8][9] on chemical reactions and MIE [10][11]. All these effects originate from the spin-conserving nature of most

• chemical reactions and from singlet–triplet interconversion in radical pairs, which is sensitive to external magnetic fields and local hyperfine fields of magnetic nuclei. Although experiments have been done in gas phase (see Sections IV.A and V.A of [2] and the references therein) and in solid state (e.g

A top-down approach for fabricating three-dimensional closed hollow nanostructures with permeable thin metal walls

• Carlos Angulo Barrios and
• Víctor Canalejas-Tejero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1231–1237, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.124

• –gel chemical reactions [1][2][3][4][5]. These procedures allow the synthesis of disperse, hollow nanostructures with precise control of their physical and chemical properties, such as size, shape, material composition and structural characteristics of the shell (thickness, permeability and surface

Energy-level alignment at interfaces between manganese phthalocyanine and C₆₀

• Daniel Waas,
• Florian Rückerl,
• Martin Knupfer and
• Bernd Büchner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 927–932, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.94

• interfaces as discussed below. There is no evidence for any additional contribution to the spectra and all spectra can be well described by a superposition of the spectra of pure C60 and MnPc. This clearly indicates the absence of chemical reactions at the interface studied here, as otherwise additional

Photo-ignition process of multiwall carbon nanotubes and ferrocene by continuous wave Xe lamp illumination

• Paolo Visconti,
• Patrizio Primiceri,
• Daniele Longo,
• Luciano Strafella,
• Paolo Carlucci,
• Mauro Lomascolo,
• Arianna Cretì and
• Giuseppe Mele

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 134–144, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.14

• process (b). Chemical reactions relative to photo-induced electron and energy transfer in MWNTs–FeCp2 nanocomposites occurring during the photo-induced ignition process. Solvent type and amount of ferrocene used in this work.

Nanocrystalline TiO₂/SnO₂ heterostructures for gas sensing

• Barbara Lyson-Sypien,
• Anna Kusior,
• Mieczylaw Rekas,
• Jan Zukrowski,
• Marta Gajewska,
• Katarzyna Michalow-Mauke,
• Thomas Graule,
• Marta Radecka and
• Katarzyna Zakrzewska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 108–122, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.12

• , oxygen adsorption and semiconducting behavior at higher temperatures. As can be seen in Figure 8b, for SnO2-rich heterostructures Tmax is about 100–125 °C, while for TiO2-rich heterostructures as shown in Figure 8c, Tmax is much higher within the range of 200–250 °C. From the thermodynamics of chemical

• reactions it is well known that oxygen adsorption (described, e.g., by the coverage degree Γ) is an exothermic process and decreases with temperature [34]. Under the experimental conditions this situation is given when the adsorption processes remain in thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e., at temperatures

Numerical investigation of depth profiling capabilities of helium and neon ions in ion microscopy

• Patrick Philipp,
• Lukasz Rzeznik and
• Tom Wirtz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1749–1760, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.168

• dynamics (MD) simulations, possible changes in the sample upon irradiation due to chemical reactions, as they are included in reactive force fields [27][28][29], are not contained in the model, but SD_TRIM_SP has the advantage to allow for the simulation of high fluences up in the 1018 ions/cm2 range, i.e

Enhanced detection of nitrogen dioxide via combined heating and pulsed UV operation of indium oxide nano-octahedra

• Oriol Gonzalez,
• Sergio Roso,
• Xavier Vilanova and
• Eduard Llobet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1507–1518, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.144

• sensors using ultraviolet (UV) activated metal oxides [13][14][15][16]. These works employ UV light as an energy efficient alternative to heating for activating chemical reactions occurring at the surface of metal oxides during gas detection. This approach could significantly cut power consumption in

Viability and proliferation of endothelial cells upon exposure to GaN nanoparticles

• Tudor Braniste,
• Ion Tiginyanu,
• Tibor Horvath,
• Simion Raevschi,
• Serghei Cebotari,
• Marco Lux,
• Axel Haverich and
• Andres Hilfiker

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1330–1337, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.124

• epitaxy (HVPE) in two stages, as previously described [29]. Metallic gallium, ammonia (NH3) gas, hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas, and hydrogen (H2) were used as source materials and carrier gases. In the source zone, GaCl was formed as a result of chemical reactions between gaseous HCl and liquid Ga. GaCl and

Functional diversity of resilin in Arthropoda

• Jan Michels,
• Esther Appel and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1241–1259, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.115

• by single conventional dyes. Chemical reactions with the Masson and Mallory dyes were mentioned to stain resilin red. Staining of resilin with aqueous solutions of methylene blue and toluidine blue is a common method and can provide good information about the presence and distribution of resilin

Influence of synthesis conditions on microstructure and phase transformations of annealed Sr₂FeMoO_6−x nanopowders formed by the citrate–gel method

• Marta Yarmolich,
• Nikolai Kalanda,
• Sergey Demyanov,
• Herman Terryn,
• Jon Ustarroz,
• Maksim Silibin and
• Gennadii Gorokh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1202–1207, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.111

• , independent of the pH of the initial solutions. It can be seen that the synthesis of the solid solution of strontium ferromolybdate proceeds through a number of parallel chemical reactions that leads to several phase transformation processes. It can be seen in the XRD data presented in Figure 2 that during

• through a series of parallel chemical reactions with the formation of intermediate phases SrMoO4, SrCO3 and Fe3O4, and its relative amount is reduced with increasing temperature. This leads to an increased amount of Sr2FeMoO6−x phase. Therefore, the lowest amount of strontium molybdate was observed for T

Reasons and remedies for the agglomeration of multilayered graphene and carbon nanotubes in polymers

• Rasheed Atif and
• Fawad Inam

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1174–1196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.109

• reactive plasma. The functional groups attached at the defect sites of MLG and CNTs can undergo further chemical reactions including but not limited to silanation, thiolation, esterification, polymer grafting, alkylation and arylation. Functionalization changes the nature of the CNTs from hydrophobic to

Experimental and simulation-based investigation of He, Ne and Ar irradiation of polymers for ion microscopy

• Lukasz Rzeznik,
• Yves Fleming,
• Tom Wirtz and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1113–1128, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.104

• depending on sample composition, but the emission of volatile compounds and chemical reactions taking place in the sample under ion irradiation are not taken into account. The latter include reactions between oxygen and carbon as well as the change of hybridisation for carbon. These different aspects can

Advanced atomic force microscopy techniques III

• Thilo Glatzel and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1052–1054, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.98

• and compared with theoretical predictions [12][13], and local charges within single molecules can be measured [14][15], however, the quantification is still under intense discussion. Chemical reactions are triggered and imaged by the AFM tip [16][17] and of course the technique is not limited to

NO gas sensing at room temperature using single titanium oxide nanodot sensors created by atomic force microscopy nanolithography

• Li-Yang Hong and
• Heh-Nan Lin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1044–1051, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.97

• chemisorbed oxygen ions (O2−(ads)) and nitric oxide ions (NO−(ads)) prior to UV irradiation, which are shown in Figure 7a and Figure 7b. The chemical reactions for NO are described by [20][38]: Without UV illumination, the chemisorbed ions are too stable to be removed by pumping. Under UV illumination, the

• ions are first neutralized by photogenerated holes and then react again with photogenerated electrons [13], which is shown in Figure 7c. The chemical reactions for NO can be similarly described by: Unlike the chemisorbed ions, the photoinduced ions (O2−(hν) and NO−(hν)) are only weakly bound to the ND