Recent progress in perovskite solar cells: the perovskite layer

• Xianfeng Dai,
• Ke Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 51–60, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.5

• only 2.2% after 1,512 hours without encapsulation when exposed to ambient conditions with 55% relative humidity (RH). Very recently, Stoumpos et al. [60] reported a novel 2D perovskite that adopted the Dion–Jacobson (DJ) structure, which is considered to be more stable and more efficient than its RP

• . [19] developed a highly efficient and stable 1,3-propanediamine-based DJ phase perovskite with a maximum PCE of 13.3% by using the hot-casting method. Furthermore, the devices without encapsulation can retain more than 95% of their initial PCE upon exposure to ambient air for 4,000 hours, continuous

The different ways to chitosan/hyaluronic acid nanoparticles: templated vs direct complexation. Influence of particle preparation on morphology, cell uptake and silencing efficiency

• Arianna Gennari,
• Julio M. Rios de la Rosa,
• Erwin Hohn,
• Maria Pelliccia,
• Enrique Lallana,
• Roberto Donno,
• Annalisa Tirella and
• Nicola Tirelli

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2594–2608, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.250

• scattered intensity expressed as a function of the scattering vector q = (4πn/λ)·sin(Θ/2) but here it was directly obtained as the slope of the nanoparticle mass vs Rg log–log plot. siRNA loading. Encapsulation efficiency (EE) values (%) were calculated as EE (A – B)/A·100% where A is the amount of siRNA

• particles marginally larger than Chit35, and the width of the particle size distribution – as assessed with DLS as a stand-alone instrument – was also similar (Figure 1, compare dashed and solid lines). Further, both methods allowed for quantitative siRNA entrapment, and the encapsulation did not

• preparation, this allows for an easier implementation of aseptic manufacturing conditions. Moreover, on one hand, the two production processes provided broadly similar nanoparticles with sizes always well below 500 nm, HA on their surface, negligible toxicity, and effective encapsulation and protection of RNA

Advanced hybrid nanomaterials

• Andreas Taubert,
• Fabrice Leroux,
• Pierre Rabu and
• Verónica de Zea Bermudez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2563–2567, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.247

• as insulating gates in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). Optical properties are the focus in “Ceria/polymer nanocontainers for high-performance encapsulation of fluorophores” [30]. Here, an organic/inorganic system is based on a liquid core containing a fluorophore (terrylene diimide) within

Small protein sequences can induce cellular uptake of complex nanohybrids

• Jan-Philip Merkl,
• Malak Safi,
• Christian Schmidtke,
• Fadi Aldeek,
• Johannes Ostermann,
• Tatiana Domitrovic,
• Sebastian Gärtner,
• John E. Johnson,
• Horst Weller and
• Hedi Mattoussi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2477–2482, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.238

• on the ability of functional fusion proteins presenting a lytic gamma peptide, to promote interactions with HeLa cells and delivery of large hybrid nanostructures. Keywords: bioconjugation; cellular uptake; nanoparticle hybrids; polymer encapsulation; self-assembly; Introduction Developing hybrid

• for this study, due to their compact size, enhanced colloidal stability, and reduced non-specific interactions in biological media [22][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. The central QDs used to build up the hybrid assemblies were prepared via encapsulation within a polymer coating made of an amine

Coating of upconversion nanoparticles with silica nanoshells of 5–250 nm thickness

• Cynthia Kembuan,
• Maysoon Saleh,
• Bastian Rühle,
• Ute Resch-Genger and
• Christina Graf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2410–2421, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.231

• quantum yields are typically prepared in organic solvents at high temperatures using hydrophobic capping agents such as oleic acid [16][17]. Life sciences applications of these NPs require to render them water-dispersible using either ligand exchange or encapsulation procedures [2][13][18][19]. This can

Semitransparent Sb₂S₃ thin film solar cells by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis for use in solar windows

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Lothar Weinhardt,
• Monika Blum,
• Clemens Heske,
• Wanli Yang,
• Ilona Oja Acik and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2396–2409, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.230

• area solar cells is probably due to moisture-assisted oxidation of P3HT [65]. Thus, to inhibit loss of PCE over time, encapsulation of the solar cell from moisture and oxygen is advised. Deng et al. studied the effect of storage time on the PCE of ITO/TiO2/as-deposited Sb2S3/P3HT/Au, and ITO/TiO2/Sb2S3

• triangles refer to 88 mm2 cell area. Samples composed of several small cells with P3HT only partially covered by Au were kept without any particular artificial conditions or encapsulation, and between measurements, were exposed to air and cycles of both indoor fluorescent tube irradiation and daylight for

Design of a nanostructured mucoadhesive system containing curcumin for buccal application: from physicochemical to biological aspects

• Sabrina Barbosa de Souza Ferreira,
• Gustavo Braga,
• Évelin Lemos Oliveira,
• Jéssica Bassi da Silva,
• Hélen Cássia Rosseto,
• Lidiane Vizioli de Castro Hoshino,
• Mauro Luciano Baesso,
• Wilker Caetano,
• Craig Murdoch,
• Helen Elizabeth Colley and
• Marcos Luciano Bruschi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2304–2328, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.222

• an emission slit of 5–10 nm. The spectra are displayed in Figure 1. The systems showed a higher emission intensity and larger widths at pH 7, due to the thermal energy employed for CUR encapsulation during the rotary evaporation. Moreover, the emission intensity of the formulations was lower at pH 10

Microfluidics as tool to prepare size-tunable PLGA nanoparticles with high curcumin encapsulation for efficient mucus penetration

• Nashrawan Lababidi,
• Valentin Sigal,
• Aljoscha Koenneke,
• Konrad Schwarzkopf,
• Andreas Manz and
• Marc Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2280–2293, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.220

• channel geometry. Additionally, fast mixing (as in microfluidics) has shown a variety of advantages over conventional methods (bench-top) regarding the physicochemical and encapsulation properties of the nanoparticles [36]. A LabSmith system (LabSmith, Inc., Livermore, USA) was used for the manufacture of

• permeation of the particles through mucus, small particles are required. To ensure proper treatment, it is necessary to reach the target dose; therefore, a high drug loading into the NP carrier is necessary to compensate for their small size in order to reach the target dose. In this study, the encapsulation

• growth, thus ensuring that only the nuclei (small NPs) would be collected. Overall, the separation of the three stages could be meaningful to understand their respective influence on the colloidal size. We can conclude that on a length scale of >1 cm, the process is already completed. Encapsulation of

Design and facile synthesis of defect-rich C-MoS₂/rGO nanosheets for enhanced lithium–sulfur battery performance

• Chengxiang Tian,
• Juwei Wu,
• Zheng Ma,
• Bo Li,
• Pengcheng Li,
• Xiaotao Zu and
• Xia Xiang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2251–2260, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.217

• in the high-frequency range, suggesting a smaller charge transfer resistance than MoS2-S. Since every cathode holds the same amount of sulfur, the distinct charge transfer resistance could be ascribed to the conductivity of the different host materials. Benefiting from the synergistic encapsulation

Incorporation of doxorubicin in different polymer nanoparticles and their anticancer activity

• Sebastian Pieper,
• Hannah Onafuye,
• Dennis Mulac,
• Jindrich Cinatl Jr.,
• Mark N. Wass,
• Martin Michaelis and
• Klaus Langer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2062–2072, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.201

• . The expression of efflux transporters such as the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter ABCB1 is an important resistance mechanism in therapy-refractory cancer cells. Drug encapsulation into nanoparticles has been shown to bypass efflux-mediated drug resistance, but there are also conflicting results

• carrier systems including PLA-, PLGA-, and PEG-based preparations have been reported to bypass the transporter-mediated efflux of anticancer drugs including doxorubicin [20][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. However, there are also conflicting results from studies in which encapsulation of

• limited efficacy for the encapsulation of hydrophilic drugs [43][44]. All nanoparticles displayed a similar drug release behaviour characterised by an initial burst release (Figure 3), which is in accordance to previous studies and may be caused by processes including the release of drug adsorbed to the

Optimization and performance of nitrogen-doped carbon dots as a color conversion layer for white-LED applications

• Tugrul Guner,
• Hurriyet Yuce,
• Didem Tascioglu,
• Eren Simsek,
• Umut Savaci,
• Aziz Genc,
• Servet Turan and
• Mustafa M. Demir

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2004–2013, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.197

• –549 nm. These Si-CDots were used as the color conversion and encapsulation layers of a commercially available GaN blue LED chip. The authors report that the luminous efficacy of radiation (LER) of the resulting Si-CDot WLED is 70.93 lm/W, the CIE coordinates are (0.28, 0.35), and the CRI is 69. In

Porous silver-coated pNIPAM-co-AAc hydrogel nanocapsules

• William W. Bryan,
• Riddhiman Medhi,
• Maria D. Marquez,
• Supparesk Rittikulsittichai,
• Michael Tran and
• T. Randall Lee

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1973–1982, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.194

• encapsulation of thermo-responsive pNIPAM-co-AAc hydrogel cores within porous silver nanoshells, and for the purpose of comparison, within a complete nonporous silver nanoshell. We adopt a simple surfactant-free emulsion polymerization (SFEP) technique to grow the initial hydrogel core templates [74][75][76

• ]. Additionally, we use previously established seeded-growth methods to accomplish complete encapsulation of the hydrogel core within the porous and nonporous silver shells [77]. We envision that these types of particles will be technologically important for the future development of "smart" delivery and release

Charge-transfer interactions between fullerenes and a mesoporous tetrathiafulvalene-based metal–organic framework

• Manuel Souto,
• Joaquín Calbo,
• Samuel Mañas-Valero,
• Aron Walsh and
• Guillermo Mínguez Espallargas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1883–1893, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.183

• (CT) process between the framework and the guest molecules is a crucial step towards the design of new electroactive MOFs. Herein, we present the encapsulation of fullerenes (C60) in a mesoporous tetrathiafulvalene (TTF)-based MOF. The CT process between the electron-acceptor C60 guest and the

• electron-donor TTF ligand is studied in detail by means of different spectroscopic techniques and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Importantly, gas sorption measurements demonstrate that sorption capacity is maintained after encapsulation of fullerenes, whereas the electrical conductivity is

• , understanding the CT processes between the electron-acceptor C60 and the electron-donor molecules is fundamental in order to optimise photovoltaics and develop efficient solar cells [28]. The encapsulation of C60 in MOFs [29] has become a very interesting strategy for the purification of fullerenes [30][31][32

Microfluidic manufacturing of different niosomes nanoparticles for curcumin encapsulation: Physical characteristics, encapsulation efficacy, and drug release

• Mohammad A. Obeid,
• Ibrahim Khadra,
• Abdullah Albaloushi,
• Margaret Mullin,
• Hanin Alyamani and
• Valerie A. Ferro

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1826–1832, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.177

• longa that has been used in antitumor and anti-inflammation applications, exhibits very limited water solubility and rapid in vivo degradation, which limits its clinical application. To overcome these limitations, niosome nanoparticles were prepared by microfluidic mixing for curcumin encapsulation

• electron microscopy. Curcumin was encapsulated with a maximum encapsulation efficiency of around 60% using Tween 85 as the non-ionic surfactant. Niosomes prepared by microfluidic mixing provided a controlled release of curcumin, as indicated by the release profile of curcumin, improving its therapeutic

• preparations [13]. In the present work, niosomes for curcumin encapsulation were prepared by microfluidic mixing. Microfluidic mixing is a fast and reliable method for the preparation of niosomes, which allows for the preparation of small and monodisperse particles within seconds. Different formulations

Lipid nanostructures for antioxidant delivery: a comparative preformulation study

• Elisabetta Esposito,
• Maddalena Sguizzato,
• Markus Drechsler,
• Paolo Mariani,
• Federica Carducci,
• Claudio Nastruzzi,
• Giuseppe Valacchi and
• Rita Cortesi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1789–1801, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.174

• transmission electron microscopy, small-angle X-ray diffraction, encapsulation efficiency, preliminary stability, in vitro cytotoxicity and protection against cigarette smoke. Nanostructured lipid carriers were found to reduce agglomerate formation and provided better dimensional stability, as compared to

• ]. The choice of the type and concentration of the nanoparticle lipid matrix is crucial since it can affect the physico-chemical aspects of SLNs and NLCs, the encapsulation parameters, as well as the long-term stability of the formulation. Thus, in view of an industrial production, a preliminary

• formulation screening appears imperative [35][36]. The present investigation has been conducted to develop a nanoparticulate approach for counteracting skin pollution. In particular, a preformulation study was performed to select the type and composition of lipid nanoparticles suitable for encapsulation of

Doxorubicin-loaded human serum albumin nanoparticles overcome transporter-mediated drug resistance in drug-adapted cancer cells

• Hannah Onafuye,
• Sebastian Pieper,
• Dennis Mulac,
• Jindrich Cinatl Jr.,
• Mark N. Wass,
• Klaus Langer and
• Martin Michaelis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1707–1715, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.166

• doxorubicin-loaded HSA (40%) nanoparticles, HSA (100%) nanoparticles, and HSA (200%) nanoparticles and doxorubicin solution reached statistical significance (P < 0.05) (Figure 3). Doxorubicin encapsulation into HSA (40%), HSA (100%), or HSA (200%) nanoparticles reduced the doxorubicin IC50 in UKF-NB-3rVCR1

• doxorubicin encapsulation into HSA nanoparticles reduced the doxorubicin IC50 to the level of parental UKF-NB-3 cells (Figure 3, Supporting Information File 1, Figure S1, Table S1), which do not display detectable ABCB1 activity [20][22][23]. Hence, the increased activity of nanoparticle-bound doxorubicin

Layered double hydroxide/sepiolite hybrid nanoarchitectures for the controlled release of herbicides

• Ediana Paula Rebitski,
• Margarita Darder and
• Pilar Aranda

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1679–1690, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.163

• coprecipitation step by assembling magnesium–aluminum layered double hydroxides (MgAl-LDH) and a sepiolite fibrous clay, with the simultaneous encapsulation of the herbicide 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) as the MgAl-LDH retains its ion exchange properties. The synthetic procedure was advantageous in

• bidistilled water, a continuous release of MCPA from the bionanocomposite beads was achieved for more than a week, while the non-encapsulated materials released the 100% of MCPA in 48 h. Besides, the encapsulation may allow for better handling and transport of the herbicide. Keywords: controlled release

• interest for agricultural purposes. Given that the amount of initial release of MCPA in all the formulations is quite high, the encapsulation of the hybrid nanoarchitectures in a protective biopolymer matrix was proposed to afford a better control over the release of the herbicide. In a previous study [49

Effects of gold and PCL- or PLLA-coated silica nanoparticles on brain endothelial cells and the blood–brain barrier

• Aniela Bittner,
• Angélique D. Ducray,
• Hans Rudolf Widmer,
• Michael H. Stoffel and
• Meike Mevissen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 941–954, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.95

• encapsulation in nanoparticles (NPs), increases precision and success of the procedure. Alternatively, gold NPs (Au-NPs) allow for localized and precise application of LTS [7][8]. Nanomaterials are foreign materials and, hence, might elicit adverse effects when they come in contact with bodily tissue, vessels

Renewable energy conversion using nano- and microstructured materials

• Harry Mönig and
• Martina Schmid

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 771–773, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.76

• cases in which organic or hybrid materials are involved [20]. For example protection against device degradation by advanced encapsulation techniques can help to further develop such technologies [21]. As it is the case for conventional materials, interface engineering is also a major factor for device

Ceria/polymer nanocontainers for high-performance encapsulation of fluorophores

• Kartheek Katta,
• Dmitry Busko,
• Yuri Avlasevich,
• Katharina Landfester,
• Stanislav Baluschev and
• Rafael Muñoz-Espí

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 522–530, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.53

• , the encapsulation process of the dye leads to a drastic reduction of the total dye concentration in the sample and increases the amounts of dissolved molecular oxygen and encapsulated fluorescent dye. A variety of methods have been applied to encapsulate the fluorescent materials into micro- and

• oxygen. In our case, during the encapsulation of TDI molecules the molecular oxygen present in the external environment (e.g., in the water phase) can enter into already formed polymer nanocapsules due to the permeability of the thin polymer shell. Thus, singlet oxygen is created by the process of

Bidirectional biomimetic flow sensing with antiparallel and curved artificial hair sensors

• Claudio Abels,
• Antonio Qualtieri,
• Toni Lober,
• Alessandro Mariotti,
• Lily D. Chambers,
• Massimo De Vittorio,
• William M. Megill and
• Francesco Rizzi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 32–46, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.4

• 2 μm encapsulation layer to all sides of the cantilever beams as well as the flow sensor substrate (including circuitry). This process tunes the mechanical properties (flexural stiffness) of the artificial hair sensor, as described in [46]. Experimental methodology Three different experiments were

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

• with 5-FU and resulted in enhanced cellular uptake and efficacy [18]. Furthermore, a chitosan/gold nanocomposite was employed as a load carrier for 5-FU with an encapsulation efficiency of 96% [19]. Interestingly, monomeric self-assembled nucleoside nanoparticles (SNNPs) loaded with 5-FU were shown to

• inhibit the cancer cells of an oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) mouse xenograft model with increased blood retention time [20]. Furthermore, a poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer stabilized with a silver nanoparticle surface for the encapsulation of 5-FU showed synergistic growth inhibition in A549 and

• , while aqueous-dissolved 5-FU comprises a dispersed phase. The calculated drug loading efficiency of 5-FU in CaP nanoparticles was 64%, which represents an improved drug encapsulation efficiency. The final yield of the chemical synthesis was found to be 10 mg/100 mL. UV–visible spectroscopic studies The

Performance analysis of rigorous coupled-wave analysis and its integration in a coupled modeling approach for optical simulation of complete heterojunction silicon solar cells

• Ziga Lokar,
• Benjamin Lipovsek,
• Marko Topic and
• Janez Krc

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2315–2329, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.216

• (EVA) encapsulation (Figure 3). The front of the basic solar cell structure consists of transparent conductive oxide (e.g., indium tin oxide (ITO)), a thin p-doped and intrinsic amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer for electrical passivation, a slightly n-doped crystalline Si (c-Si) wafer (absorber), and

• solar cell structure, including the front encapsulation and glass, including nano- and microtextures at the interfaces of the cell. The simulation results showed that optimized nanotextures can outperform currently used microtextures, resulting in a JSC increase of 0.51 mA/cm2 (1.4%). A combined nano

Optimization of the optical coupling in nanowire-based integrated photonic platforms by FDTD simulation

• Nan Guan,
• Andrey Babichev,
• Martin Foldyna,
• Dmitry Denisov,
• François H. Julien and
• Maria Tchernycheva

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2248–2254, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.209

• -glass SiOx layer by removing it. 2D simulations at the horizontal cross-sectional plane in the middle of the waveguide were performed on the system without spin-on glass encapsulation to find the optimal width of the SiNx waveguide. For a final coupling efficiency calculations, 3D simulations were

• ] allowed the origin of the low coupling efficiency to be identified, namely the poor vertical overlap between the NWs and the SiNx waveguide due to the spin-on-glass encapsulation and the poor coupling from the wide SiNx waveguide to the NW photodetector. Therefore, we have focused on the optimization of

• photonic platform was optimized from an initial value of 8.7% up to 65.5%, which is a 7.5-fold increase from the initial structure. The optical losses due to the LED–waveguide and waveguide–photodetector coupling were reduced by removing the spin-on-glass encapsulation layer and reducing the SiNx waveguide

Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

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

• toxic character of the released Pb2+, which requires the development of special recycling protocols [40][42]. While the first problem seems to be solvable, in particular by the encapsulation and a design of the cationic sublattice, the presence of Pb2+ cannot be avoided. Lead is allowed for usage in the

• -enriched surface layer [103]. The best Ca-substituted CsPbI3 HPs show a PCE of higher than 13% and maintain more than 85% of the initial efficiency for more than two months of testing with encapsulation [103]. A partial substitution of Pb(II) with In(III) yields HPs with a reduced lead content and a

• stability of MASnI3-based cells can also be strongly enhanced by doping with SnF2 [118][123][124]. The doped materials showed a remarkable stability when illuminated under ambient air conditions without additional encapsulation (Figure 4c). Additionally, the SnF2 doping results in a decrease of the HP