Fabrication and characterization of Si_1−xGe_x nanocrystals in as-grown and annealed structures: a comparative study

• Muhammad Taha Sultan,
• Adrian Valentin Maraloiu,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Jón Tómas Gudmundsson,
• Andrei Manolescu,
• Valentin Serban Teodorescu,
• Magdalena Lidia Ciurea and
• Halldór Gudfinnur Svavarsson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1873–1882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.182

• ° divergence slit and a 0.27° parallel plate collimator was used. The measurement run was made over 0.005 °/s scan speed. For photoconductive measurement, Al contacts (1 × 4 mm2) in co-planar geometry with a gap of 4 mm between them were deposited by evaporation. A schematic of the photocurrent setup and the

Materials nanoarchitectonics at two-dimensional liquid interfaces

• Katsuhiko Ariga,
• Michio Matsumoto,
• Taizo Mori and
• Lok Kumar Shrestha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1559–1587, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.153

•  15) [237][238][239]. Fullerene molecules, such as C60 and C70, are dissolved in a liquid phase (good solvent) that contacts an immiscible liquid phase in which the molecules are poorly soluble (poor solvent). The formation of crystalline assemblies of fullerene molecules is induced by supersaturation

• -dimensional C60 crystals prepared through liquid–liquid interfacial precipitation between m-xylene and isopropyl alcohol for visible-spectrum photodetectors [248]. Additional materials or two metal contacts are not necessary in the fabricated photodetectors. These devices made solely from carbon can be used

High-temperature resistive gas sensors based on ZnO/SiC nanocomposites

• Vadim B. Platonov,
• Marina N. Rumyantseva,
• Alexander S. Frolov,
• Alexey D. Yapryntsev and
• Alexander M. Gaskov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1537–1547, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.151

• alumina micro-hotplates provided with vapor-deposited Pt contacts (0.3 × 0.2 mm2) separated by a 0.2 mm gap and with embedded Pt-meanders. The paste was dried at room temperature in ambient air and then calcined at 250 °C in purified air for 20 h to remove the binder. The thick sensing layer was about 1

Kelvin probe force microscopy of the nanoscale electrical surface potential barrier of metal/semiconductor interfaces in ambient atmosphere

• Petr Knotek,
• Tomáš Plecháček,
• Jan Smolík,
• Petr Kutálek,
• Filip Dvořák,
• Milan Vlček,
• Jiří Navrátil and
• Čestmír Drašar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1401–1411, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.138

• Au layer (both contacts on the same layer); c) 53 nm Au layer; d) and e) 19 nm Au layer before and after e-beam diffusion; f) cleaved Bi2Se3. Curves c–f) were measured with the ohmic contact on the 107 nm Au layer (see Figure S1, Supporting Information File 1). (A) Change of the I–V characteristics

Gas sensing properties of individual SnO₂ nanowires and SnO₂ sol–gel nanocomposites

• Alexey V. Shaposhnik,
• Dmitry A. Shaposhnik,
• Sergey Yu. Turishchev,
• Olga A. Chuvenkova,
• Stanislav V. Ryabtsev,
• Alexey A. Vasiliev,
• Xavier Vilanova,
• Francisco Hernandez-Ramirez and
• Joan R. Morante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1380–1390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.136

• , wherein random electrical contact between wires located on different electrodes are formed. The contact between each pair of nanowires is not stable, but due to the large number of contacts, completely stable electrical contact behavior is observed (on a statistical average). Sensors based on such systems

• show high sensitivity [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Hierarchical structures with SnO2 nanowires covered with additional nanoscale objects can be used for the improvement of electrical contacts [11][16][17]. A second direction in nanowire sensor development is the manufacturing of

• electrical contacts with individual nanowires [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. These contacts can be made by means of photolithography, but more often, focused ion beam (FIB) technology is used for this purpose. This approach has several advantages: first, a reliable electrical contact

Molecular attachment to a microscope tip: inelastic tunneling, Kondo screening, and thermopower

• Rouzhaji Tuerhong,
• Mauro Boero and
• Jean-Pierre Bucher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1243–1250, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.124

• matter of fact, in our configuration, the tip–molecule and the molecule–sample contacts are not equivalent for small gaps, leading to strong effects for partially lifted molecules, as described in Figure 2f. A molecular rearrangement due to new geometrical boundary conditions is thus expected for larger

Electroluminescence and current–voltage measurements of single-(In,Ga)N/GaN-nanowire light-emitting diodes in a nanowire ensemble

• David van Treeck,
• Johannes Ledig,
• Gregor Scholz,
• Jonas Lähnemann,
• Mattia Musolino,
• Abbes Tahraoui,
• Oliver Brandt,
• Andreas Waag,
• Henning Riechert and
• Lutz Geelhaar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1177–1187, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.117

• top contacts and on the back side of the Si substrate, respectively. A more detailed description of the growth and processing procedure as well as the EL and I–V characteristics of the NW-ensemble LED can be found in [12]. The EL and I–V measurements on single-NW LEDs were carried out in a Zeiss

• current density for the maximum relative EQE and vice versa. It should be noted that this relation is only true if the NWs have similar contact resistances, resulting in a homogeneous current spreading in the ensemble device. The side-by-side comparison of ITO and Ni/Au top contacts in [12] showed that

Direct growth of few-layer graphene on AlN-based resonators for high-sensitivity gravimetric biosensors

• Jimena Olivares,
• Teona Mirea,
• Lorena Gordillo-Dagallier,
• Bruno Marco,
• José Miguel Escolano,
• Marta Clement and
• Enrique Iborra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 975–984, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.98

• SMRs in terms of quality and electromechanical coupling factors. To fit the fluidic system, the electrical contacts to the resonators were set apart from the active area of the devices, which entailed extending the electrical pads (see Figure 8b where the O-ring sealing footprint is sketched) [26]. All

In situ AFM visualization of Li–O₂ battery discharge products during redox cycling in an atmospherically controlled sample cell

• Kumar Virwani,
• Younes Ansari,
• Khanh Nguyen,
• Francisco José Alía Moreno-Ortiz,
• Jangwoo Kim,
• Maxwell J. Giammona,
• Ho-Cheol Kim and
• Young-Hye La

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 930–940, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.94

• ] using this in situ AFM set-up we monitored surface changes on the products of a Na–oxygen discharge reaction. The terms electrochemical cell and battery are used interchangeably in this study. Upon cell assembly, electrical connections were made between the lithium and carbon stainless steel contacts

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

• benefits arising from core–shell nanowire arrays for Si heterojunction solar cells. Contacts with a high surface-to-volume ratio can clearly be seen. Particularly in photovoltaics, they may be prone to increased recombination losses. For other applications, such as water splitting, porous materials may

Hydrophilicity and carbon chain length effects on the gas sensing properties of chemoresistive, self-assembled monolayer carbon nanotube sensors

• Juan Casanova-Cháfer,
• Carla Bittencourt and
• Eduard Llobet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 565–577, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.58

• coated with a mat of CNTs via airbrushing through a shadow mask. Once the sensors were sputtered with gold and functionalized with thiols, two-wire contacts were made on the samples using a conductive epoxy (Ag component metallization, Heraeus) and platinum wires. The samples were bonded to a 20 × 30 mm2

Mechanical and thermodynamic properties of Aβ₄₂, Aβ₄₀, and α-synuclein fibrils: a coarse-grained method to complement experimental studies

• Adolfo B. Poma,
• Horacio V. Guzman,
• Mai Suan Li and
• Panagiotis E. Theodorakis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 500–513, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.51

• achieve this by applying different types of deformation (e.g., tension, shearing and indentation) and analysing the intermolecular contacts between amino acids. Our simulations reveal significant differences in the mechanical behaviour between Aβ40 and Aβ42 and α-syn fibrils. Moreover, we find that the α

• capsids [35] and β-amyloids [36]. The strength of the repulsive non-native term, ε’, is set equal to ε. Our CG model takes into account native distances as in the case of a Gō-like model [37]. Hence, the native contacts are determined by the overlap criterion [48]. In practice, each heavy atom is assigned

• representation for some biological fibrils as well as their native interactions. These native contacts represent hydrogen bonds (HB), and hydrophobic and ionic bridges. Moreover, we consider contacts between amino acids in individual chains with sequential distance |i − j| > 4. The parameters σij are given by

Nanocomposite–parylene C thin films with high dielectric constant and low losses for future organic electronic devices

• Marwa Mokni,
• Gianluigi Maggioni,
• Abdelkader Kahouli,
• Sara M. Carturan,
• Walter Raniero and
• Alain Sylvestre

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 428–441, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.42

• to probe deeper the film structure. The surface morphology was analyzed using a non-contact mode AFM model C-21 (Danish Micro Engineering), mounting a DualScope Probe Scanner 95-50. Capacitance areas were defined in the top NCPC resulting in square 2 × 2 mm2 contacts. In order to assure a homogeneous

Relation between thickness, crystallite size and magnetoresistance of nanostructured La_1−xSr_xMn_yO_3±δ films for magnetic field sensors

• Rasuole Lukose,
• Valentina Plausinaitiene,
• Milita Vagner,
• Nerija Zurauskiene,
• Skirmantas Kersulis,
• Virgaudas Kubilius,
• Karolis Motiejuitis,
• Birute Knasiene,
• Voitech Stankevic,
• Zita Saltyte,
• Martynas Skapas,
• Algirdas Selskis and
• Evaldas Naujalis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 256–261, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.24

• % nitric acid. For the electric transport and magnetoresistance measurements, the Ag contacts with a Cr sublayer were thermally deposited and postannealed at 450 °C for 1 h in Ar atmosphere. The magnetoresistance (MR) measurements were performed under a permanent magnetic field up to 0.7 T using an

Sputtering of silicon nanopowders by an argon cluster ion beam

• Xiaomei Zeng,
• Vasiliy Pelenovich,
• Zhenguo Wang,
• Wenbin Zuo,
• Sergey Belykh,
• Alexander Tolstogouzov,
• Dejun Fu and
• Xiangheng Xiao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 135–143, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.13

• the nanoparticles are filled by debris, which due to the limited lateral resolution cannot be observed. Such filling of the voids results in densification of the top surface layer. Therefore, as the number of contacts between neighbor nanoparticles increases, consequently, we can expect the weakening

Pull-off and friction forces of micropatterned elastomers on soft substrates: the effects of pattern length scale and stiffness

• Peter van Assenbergh,
• Marike Fokker,
• Julian Langowski,
• Jan van Esch,
• Marleen Kamperman and
• Dimitra Dodou

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 79–94, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.8

• material is used for the micropattern, the Eeff is low, leading to better defect control, stress distribution, and contact stiffness compared to micropatterns made of stiffer materials [22]. Also, the strength of the contacts formed between the adhesive and the substrate is affected by the material

• -microscale and microscale dimples without a terminal layer do not generate significantly higher pull-off forces than flat samples. We assume that, for both dimple sizes, the soft substrate fully conforms to the dimples, and the formation of independent contacts does not happen. Sub-microscale dimples have a

Contact splitting in dry adhesion and friction: reducing the influence of roughness

• Jae-Kang Kim and
• Michael Varenberg

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1–8, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.1

• different boundary conditions. However, it provides a useful example that qualitatively illustrates the effect we may expect to see. Shearing an original and a split flap against an uneven substrate, we may expect that they will form contacts similar to those shown in Figure 4a, with the original flap being

Apparent tunneling barrier height and local work function of atomic arrays

• Neda Noei,
• Alexander Weismann and
• Richard Berndt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 3048–3052, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.283

• transport through nanoscale constrictions [32] and was suggested to affect the apparent barrier height in single-atom contacts [33]. Atomistic transport calculations have been performed for Au contacts in [34]. Symmetric junctions comprised of two (001) surfaces, either planar or with an adatom or with a

Charged particle single nanometre manufacturing

• Philip D. Prewett,
• Cornelis W. Hagen,
• Claudia Lenk,
• Steve Lenk,
• Marcus Kaestner,
• Tzvetan Ivanov,
• Ahmad Ahmad,
• Ivo W. Rangelow,
• Xiaoqing Shi,
• Stuart A. Boden,
• Alex P. G. Robinson,
• Dongxu Yang,
• Sangeetha Hari,
• Marijke Scotuzzi and
• Ejaz Huq

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2855–2882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.266

Near-infrared light harvesting of upconverting NaYF₄:Yb³⁺/Er³⁺-based amorphous silicon solar cells investigated by an optical filter

• Daiming Liu,
• Qingkang Wang and
• Qing Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2788–2793, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.260

• prepared (Figure 3a). One a-Si:H layer of ca. 350 nm is sandwiched between two aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) contacts. The thickness of the AZO contacts is approximately 1.5 μm. From Figure 3b, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the a-Si:H solar cell is calculated to be 6.68% at the maximum power

Optimization of Mo/Cr bilayer back contacts for thin-film solar cells

• Nima Khoshsirat,
• Fawad Ali,
• Vincent Tiing Tiong,
• Mojtaba Amjadipour,
• Hongxia Wang,
• Mahnaz Shafiei and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2700–2707, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.252

• , the back contact material should have a higher work function than the neighboring light-absorbing semiconductor layer [3]. Accordingly, different metal contacts (such as Al, Au, Cr, Mn, Mo, Pt, Ti, V and W) have been used as back contact layer in thin-film solar cells [4][5][6][7]. Among these

• substrate to the absorber layer and its effect on the adhesion of the back contact was not studied. In spite of the importance of this topic for the development of thin-film solar cells, there are very few reports regarding the application of Cr as an adhesion layer in back contacts [29][30]. Notably, the

• bilayer and the adhesion of the film to the substrate while we could reduce the required thickness to 600 nm. That is at most two thirds of reported thickness for Mo back contacts for thin-film solar cells. Experimental Film deposition A 10–15 nm thick layer of Cr was deposited on a 2.5 × 2.5 cm SLG

Characterization of the microscopic tribological properties of sandfish (Scincus scincus) scales by atomic force microscopy

• Weibin Wu,
• Christian Lutz,
• Simon Mersch,
• Richard Thelen,
• Christian Greiner,
• Guillaume Gomard and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2618–2627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.243

• (µ = Ffric/Fload) of two bodies in contact. For a sandfish swimming in sand, however, there are numerous microscale contacts inducing friction without a defined load. The friction angle measurement introduced by Rechenberg [7] provides a simplified method to estimate a granular frictional coefficient

Pattern generation for direct-write three-dimensional nanoscale structures via focused electron beam induced deposition

• Lukas Keller and
• Michael Huth

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2581–2598, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.240

• the centered beam position for both Me3CpMePt(IV) and HCo3Fe(CO)12. The polar/azimuthal angles were −60°/45° and −60°/−39°, respectively. All depositions were done on p-doped Si wafers with thermally grown SiO2 of 200 nm thickness. Au/Cr contacts, as used for some deposition experiments, were grown by

Friction reduction through biologically inspired scale-like laser surface textures

• Johannes Schneider,
• Vergil Djamiykov and
• Christian Greiner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2561–2572, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.238

• biologically inspired surface morphology has the potential to reduce friction forces by more than 80%. However, under certain conditions, especially for slow-moving lubricated steel-on-steel and steel-on-ceramic contacts, these surface morphologies may increase friction as well. Similar to classical laser

• the potential to yield significant reduction in friction forces and are expected to spark future research in the field of biologically inspired surface morphologies applied to tribological contacts. Keywords: bioinspiration; friction; laser surface texturing; scales; tribology; Introduction Friction

• achieved for mixed lubrication contacts [15][16]. While these traditional texturing elements have been studied for decades and by numerous research groups worldwide, in recent years, a new paradigm has emerged. Researchers have started to look to biology in search for morphological textures that would

Evidence of friction reduction in laterally graded materials

• Roberto Guarino,
• Gianluca Costagliola,
• Federico Bosia and
• Nicola Maria Pugno

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2443–2456, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.229

• , display setae with a graded stiffness that optimises the adhesive performance on rough surfaces [1]. Hardness and stiffness gradients are of fundamental importance in the biomechanics of contacts, since they allow increased resistance against wear, impact, penetration and crack propagation [2][3][4][5][6