High-yield synthesis of silver nanowires for transparent conducting PET films

• Gul Naz,
• Hafsa Asghar,
• Muhammad Ramzan,
• Muhammad Arshad,
• Rashid Ahmed,
• Muhammad Bilal Tahir,
• Bakhtiar Ul Haq,
• Nadeem Baig and
• Junaid Jalil

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 624–632, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.51

• toxic composition. Moreover, the sputtering process is time-consuming and sputtering make the films brittle, which limits the application in flexible applications [5]. Numerous materials are under consideration to overcome these challenges. In the past few years, certain materials, such as graphene

Impact of GaAs(100) surface preparation on EQE of AZO/Al₂O₃/p-GaAs photovoltaic structures

• Piotr Caban,
• Rafał Pietruszka,
• Jarosław Kaszewski,
• Monika Ożga,
• Bartłomiej S. Witkowski,
• Krzysztof Kopalko,
• Piotr Kuźmiuk,
• Katarzyna Gwóźdź,
• Ewa Płaczek-Popko,
• Krystyna Lawniczak-Jablonska and
• Marek Godlewski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 578–592, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.48

• -cycles. Each multi-cycle, in turn, consisted of one aluminum oxide creation cycle (TMA + H2O) and 24 cycles of zinc oxide deposition (diethylzinc/Zn(C2H5)2, DEZ, CAS:557-20-0) + H2O [2]. In the final fabrication process, a top point contact was deposited (70 nm) by aluminum-target sputtering (Kurt J

• , were chosen for detailed studies. The results of elemental content are collected in Table 1 for A2 (left) and B1 (right) samples as a function of the sputtering time. Due a very wide interface we did not convert the sputtering time to nanometers. The difference in the width of the interface among the

• analyzed samples is most striking when comparing the data in Table 1. The substrate was revealed after 96 min of sputtering of sample A2 but already after 64 min of sputtering of sample B1. The changes in elemental concentration appeared after 30 min of sputtering. In the case of A2, first the changes in

Local stiffness and work function variations of hexagonal boron nitride on Cu(111)

• Abhishek Grewal,
• Yuqi Wang,
• Matthias Münks,
• Klaus Kern and
• Markus Ternes

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 559–565, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.46

• acquisition. Sample preparation: A Cu(111) single crystal (MaTeck GmbH) is cleaned via repeated cycles of Ar-ion sputtering at room temperature followed by annealing to 1020 K in an ultrahigh-vacuum preparation chamber. A partial layer of h-BN is grown by chemical vapour deposition by heating the Cu(111

Influence of electrospray deposition on C₆₀ molecular assemblies

• Antoine Hinaut,
• Sebastian Scherb,
• Sara Freund,
• Zhao Liu,
• Thilo Glatzel and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 552–558, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.45

• ) single crystals (Mateck GmbH) were prepared under UHV conditions by several cycles of Ar+ sputtering and annealing at 750 K. KBr(001) crystals (Mateck GmbH) were prepared either by cleavage in air and quick introduction in UHV or by cleavage under UHV conditions. Subsequently, annealing at 350 K for 2 h

• nm, and f2 = 1 MHz, A2 = 400–800 pm. Their preparation consisted of annealing for 1 h at 400 K followed by tip Ar+ sputtering for 90 s at 680 eV at an Ar+ pressure of 3 × 10−6 mbar. The base pressure of the UHV system during AFM measurements is maintained at 2 × 10−11 mbar. Electrospray deposition

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

Interface interaction of transition metal phthalocyanines with strontium titanate (100)

• Reimer Karstens,
• Thomas Chassé and
• Heiko Peisert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 485–496, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.39

• treatments [12][13] or water leaching [14][15]. The SrO termination is often achieved via thermal Sr segregation [16][17][18] or by deposition of SrO in vacuo [19][20]. Due to the thermal Sr segregation effect, sputtering and annealing procedures result commonly in SrO-terminated surfaces [21]. The detailed

• × 10 × 0.5 mm3, 0.5 wt % Nb). The surfaces were typically prepared in vacuo by repeated cycles of Ar ion sputtering (0.5 kV, p(Ar) = 5 × 10−5 mbar, 30 min) and annealing (900 K, p(O2) = 4 × 10−5 mbar, 30 min). This method is called “preparation I” in the following. We note that this procedure results

Reconstruction of a 2D layer of KBr on Ir(111) and electromechanical alteration by graphene

• Zhao Liu,
• Antoine Hinaut,
• Stefan Peeters,
• Sebastian Scherb,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Maria Clelia Righi and
• Thilo Glatzel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 432–439, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.35

• . Methods Sample preparation The Ir(111) single crystal (MaTeck GmbH, Germany) was cleaned by alternating cycles of Ar+ sputtering and annealing at 1400 K under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions with a base pressure of less than 1 × 10−10 mbar. Graphene was prepared by dosing ethylene with a chamber

Structural and optical characteristics determined by the sputtering deposition conditions of oxide thin films

• Petronela Prepelita,
• Florin Garoi and
• Valentin Craciun

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 354–365, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.29

• dioxide (SiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering on quartz substrates was investigated. The deposition conditions were optimized to achieve stoichiometric thin films. The orientation of crystallites, structure, and composition were investigated by X-ray

• calculated from the absorption spectra. The influence of thickness on the structural and optical properties of the oxide films was investigated. Good optical quality and performance were noticed, which makes these thin films worthy of integration into metamaterial structures. Keywords: magnetron sputtering

• -frequency magnetron sputtering (rfMS) [27][28][29][30], vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) [31][32][33], chemical methods [34], reactive ion beam sputter deposition [35], among others. For example, SiO2 and ZnO films obtained by rfMS can be either used as dielectric materials in metasurface structures or as

The patterning toolbox FIB-o-mat: Exploiting the full potential of focused helium ions for nanofabrication

• Victor Deinhart,
• Lisa-Marie Kern,
• Jan N. Kirchhof,
• Sabrina Juergensen,
• Joris Sturm,
• Enno Krauss,
• Thorsten Feichtner,
• Sviatoslav Kovalchuk,
• Michael Schneider,
• Dieter Engel,
• Bastian Pfau,
• Bert Hecht,
• Kirill I. Bolotin,
• Stephanie Reich and
• Katja Höflich

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 304–318, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.25

• nanometer range is heavily sought after. One promising candidate for ultraprecise nanofabrication is focused ion beam (FIB) machining. Focused ion beams locally remove material based on physical sputtering with a large degree of flexibility due to advanced beam control. FIB patterning is a direct single

• improved through modeling of the relevant processes in FIB machining, especially angle-dependent physical sputtering [11] and redeposition [15], or geometric considerations [12]. In the same manner, locally varying doses in He ion-based resist patterning may be corrected based on heuristic modeling

• local ion–solid interaction is a balance among several ion-induced, surface-related, and thermally triggered processes [24]. Physical sputtering is only one of the processes. Also, chemical reactions with adsorbed contaminants can occur and, under certain circumstances, may dominate over the atomic

Scanning transmission helium ion microscopy on carbon nanomembranes

• Daniel Emmrich,
• Annalena Wolff,
• Nikolaus Meyerbröker,
• Jörg K. N. Lindner,
• André Beyer and
• Armin Gölzhäuser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 222–231, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.18

• yield is significantly increased because sputtering occurs not only in backward but also in forward direction [16][17]. To observe and control the milling process, the ion transmission signal is preferred over the SE signal because it is related to the membrane thickness. The detection of the

• using the software package TRIM in the program Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) [26]. The “Surface Sputtering/Monolayer Collision Steps” calculation was selected due to the limited thickness of the membranes to ensure that the collisions in each monolayer were considered. 50000 ions at 15 and

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

• , the Pt3Ti(111) single crystal surface (purchased by MaTecK) was cleaned by several cycles of neon sputtering (p(Ne) = 1 × 10−5 mbar) for 10 min and subsequently annealed at 1200 K for 25 min until a sharp p(2×2) pattern was visible by LEED. This procedure led to a clean alloy surface with a single Pt

Paper-based triboelectric nanogenerators and their applications: a review

• Jing Han,
• Nuo Xu,
• Yuchen Liang,
• Mei Ding,
• Junyi Zhai,
• Qijun Sun and
• Zhong Lin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 151–171, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.12

• usually allow a better control over the material thickness, yielding more homogeneous structures. The vacuum evaporation is applicable to a variety of metals at a high rate of up to 50 nm·s−1; however, it requires expensive equipment and high-vacuum conditions. The sputtering can be conducted by using

• conductivity. VF is a simple and rapid method to cast functional materials onto solution-processable substrates without the need to implement any time-consuming and high-cost processes (e.g., evacuation, thermal/e-beam heating, and radio-frequency sputtering). The conductivity is also easily adjustable by

Bio-imaging with the helium-ion microscope: A review

• Matthias Schmidt,
• James M. Byrne and
• Ilari J. Maasilta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 1–23, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.1

• ). Ion collisions with a nucleus in the sample result in (back-)scattering of the primary ion, displacement of atoms in the sample, sputtering of material and generation of phonons (heat). However, incoming ions also undergo many interactions with electrons in the sample, leading to the generation of

Piezotronic effect in AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterojunction nanowires used as a flexible strain sensor

• Jianqi Dong,
• Liang Chen,
• Yuqing Yang and
• Xingfu Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1847–1853, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.166

• /GaN NW was transferred to a flexible PET substrate, and ITO electrodes were prepared by magnetron sputtering on both ends of the NW to form an ohmic contact. Measurements The selective EC etching process and the morphology of the NWs were imaged using an optical microscope (Leica DM2500M), an SEM

Molecular dynamics modeling of the influence forming process parameters on the structure and morphology of a superconducting spin valve

• Alexander Vakhrushev,
• Aleksey Fedotov,
• Vladimir Boian,
• Roman Morari and
• Anatolie Sidorenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1776–1788, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.160

• layered nanostructure consisting of Nb, CuNi, CoOx and Co layers, prepared by magnetron sputtering. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) image of a layered Co, CoOx and CuNi nanostructure prepared by magnetron sputtering. Sketch of a Nb/Co spin-valve nanosystem. The numbers next to

Direct observation of the Si(110)-(16×2) surface reconstruction by atomic force microscopy

• Tatsuya Yamamoto,
• Ryo Izumi,
• Kazushi Miki,
• Takahiro Yamasaki,
• Yasuhiro Sugawara and
• Yan Jun Li

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1750–1756, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.157

• cantilever was used, which was cleaned by Ar+ sputtering to remove the oxide and contamination on the tip. The deflection of the cantilever was measured by the optical beam deflection method. The topography of the surface was imaged while feedback electronics were used to adjust the tip–sample distance to

Imaging and milling resolution of light ion beams from helium ion microscopy and FIBs driven by liquid metal alloy ion sources

• Nico Klingner,
• Gregor Hlawacek,
• Paul Mazarov,
• Wolfgang Pilz,
• Fabian Meyer and
• Lothar Bischoff

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1742–1749, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.156

• ) for helium (13 fold) but only from 6 nm (milling) to 4 nm (imaging) for lithium (1.5 fold). The simulated minimum milling width of a 30 keV point-like ion beam in Figure 4 has been obtained using SRIM [39]. The “monolayer collision steps/surface sputtering” mode has been used to simulate the size of

• elements) has been evaluated in terms of the distance to the impinging ion. To account for the milling of a line we calculated the projected distance instead of evaluating the radial distance of the emission site from the beam center. The resulting Gaussian-like sputtering profiles have been normalized and

• helium beam were measured by examining sputtered lines [42] as well as pores [43] in membranes. Gallium is used and optimized for industrial and scientific applications and sputtering beam profiles were measured by TEM [44][45]. The additional influence of the required ExB filter for multi-element or

Out-of-plane surface patterning by subsurface processing of polymer substrates with focused ion beams

• Serguei Chiriaev,
• Luciana Tavares,
• Vadzim Adashkevich,
• Arkadiusz J. Goszczak and
• Horst-Günter Rubahn

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1693–1703, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.151

• destroys the films and roughens the surface due to dominating sputtering processes. A very different behavior, resulting in the formation of complex, multiscale 3D patterns, is observed for polydimethylsiloxane samples. The roles of the metal film structure, elastic properties of the polymer substrate, and

• direct, maskless surface patterning with a superior lateral resolution and depth control [2][3]. The portfolio of the currently used FIB-based and FIB-assisted surface patterning techniques includes a number of different methods, such as ion-beam sputtering of surface layers (ion-beam milling), ion-beam

• polymer bulk [7]. In fact, the method utilizes ion energy losses to manipulate the surface morphology by means of radiation damage generated in the substrate bulk and minimizes the surface damage resulting from sputtering. This leaves the thin films and the prefabricated thin-film nanostructures on the

The influence of an interfacial hBN layer on the fluorescence of an organic molecule

• Christine Brülke,
• Oliver Bauer and
• Moritz M. Sokolowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1663–1684, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.149

• of borazine that is known to occur even when stored at low temperatures, m/z 2) and borazine (m/z 80) showed a ratio of approximately 1:1. The clean Cu(111) surface was prepared by consecutive steps of sputtering for 30 min with Ar+ ions (1000 eV, 4 μA) and annealing at 1010 K for 30 min. After the

• last sputtering cycle, the Cu(111) sample was heated to 1010 K and ca. 2000 L borazine were dosed (1.5 × 10−6 mbar via the background for 30 min) onto the sample held at 1010 K. After stopping the borazine dosing, the sample was cooled down with 1 K·s−1. The structural quality of the bare Cu(111

• morphology on a micrometer scale [60]. We propose that the defect-rich regions exhibit a large step density due to impurities and/or grain boundaries. Consequently, we assume that the hot spots are related to an inhomogeneous mesoscopic roughness of the Cu(111) surface, which is remnant after sputtering and

Piezoelectric sensor based on graphene-doped PVDF nanofibers for sign language translation

• Shuai Yang,
• Xiaojing Cui,
• Rui Guo,
• Zhiyi Zhang,
• Shengbo Sang and
• Hulin Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1655–1662, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.148

• piezoelectric sensor. Ti3C2 MXene and Ag NWs maintain the good conductivity of the electrode and avoid possible short-circuit problems occurring after magnetron sputtering. Also, a stable flexibility of the structure is maintained. GR is added with six different mass fractions, that is, 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8

A self-powered, flexible ultra-thin Si/ZnO nanowire photodetector as full-spectrum optical sensor and pyroelectric nanogenerator

• Liang Chen,
• Jianqi Dong,
• Miao He and
• Xingfu Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1623–1630, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.145

• deposited onto 45 μm p-Si by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. Next, the sample was placed into a solution of 0.877 g hexamethylenetetramine, 1.372 g Zn(CH3COO)2, and 13 mL ammonium hydroxide to grow ZnO NWs for half an hour via a hydrothermal method in a mechanical convection oven at 90 °C

• . Finally, by RF magnetron sputtering, a 200 nm thick layers of ITO and Cu were deposited on ZnO NWs and p-Si, respectively. Electrical measurements: the measurement setup includes a source meter, an optical platform, a chopper, sample, and a light source. Sample, chopper and light source must be in the

Oxidation of Au/Ag films by oxygen plasma: phase separation and generation of nanoporosity

• Abdel-Aziz El Mel,
• Said A. Mansour,
• Mujaheed Pasha,
• Atef Zekri,
• Janarthanan Ponraj,
• Akshath Shetty and
• Yousef Haik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1608–1614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.143

• Lewis et al. [20]. However, instead of using nanostructures as before, we used Au/Ag alloy thin films deposited by co-sputtering as the model system to study the oxidation process triggered by radio-frequency oxygen plasma (Figure 1). The oxidation and phase separation processes resulted in the

• a high specific surface area. Experimental The Au/Ag films were deposited by magnetron co-sputtering of gold and silver targets (99.99% in purity). The electrical power applied to the gold and silver targets was fixed to 25 and 100 W, respectively. This yielded Au/Ag films with 75 atom % and 25 atom

• speed and no intentional heating was applied to the substrate during the procedure. To ensure a proper adhesion of the Au/Ag alloy films, prior to each deposition a ≈100 nm thick chromium layer was deposited by sputtering of a chromium target (99.99% in purity), under pure argon atmosphere at 10 mT, for

Walking energy harvesting and self-powered tracking system based on triboelectric nanogenerators

• Mingliang Yao,
• Guangzhong Xie,
• Qichen Gong and
• Yuanjie Su

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1590–1595, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.141

• and deionized water were used to clean 50 μm thick PTFE films, which were then dried with nitrogen. During the etching process, DC sputtering was used on the surface of the PTFE film as a mask to deposit Au particles for 45 s. Next, a gas mixture containing O2, CF4, and Ar was introduced to the

• . Fabrication of the u-TENG The u-TENG fabrication procedure was adapted, with modifications, from [34]. The back electrode was formed by depositing a Cu layer on the unmodified surface of a PTFE film via magnetron sputtering. A poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-coated PTFE film was mounted onto a poly(ethylene

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

• molecules were carefully outgassed for 2 to 5 h prior to deposition at ±10 K of the evaporation temperature. CoO was prepared on an Ir(100) single crystal surface cleaned by ion sputtering and annealing. The Ir(100)-(1 × 1) surface was prepared according to [31]. We employ thin films of two distinct

Helium ion microscope – secondary ion mass spectrometry for geological materials

• Matthew R. Ball,
• Richard J. M. Taylor,
• Joshua F. Einsle,
• Fouzia Khanom,
• Christelle Guillermier and
• Richard J. Harrison

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1504–1515, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.133

• ions of species x to the number of sputtered atoms of x, in a matrix-matched reference sample. The concentration of x, Cx, can then be calculated using Equation 1, and depends on the secondary ion current, Ix, the calculated useful yield UYx, the primary ion beam current, Ip and the sputtering yield, Y

• , which is typically measured after the analysis: The sputtering yield depends on the nature of the atoms as well as the matrix in which they are bound. This yield can be predicted semi-empirically for a primary Ne beam [17]. Figure 3 shows how the calculated yield of different atoms varies for a silicate

• . The calculated sputtering yield as a function of the atomic number for a 10 kV primary Ne beam impacting a silicate glass matrix for a low-density glass (2.2 g·cm−3, blue) and a high-density glass (3.3 g·cm−3, red), calculation after [17]. Reflected-light micrograph of the analysed Spodumene grain