Applications of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in drug and therapeutic delivery, and biotechnological advancements

• Maria Suciu,
• Corina M. Ionescu,
• Alexandra Ciorita,
• Septimiu C. Tripon,
• Dragos Nica,
• Hani Al-Salami and
• Lucian Barbu-Tudoran

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1092–1109, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.94

• of iron oxides in the form of magnetite (Fe3O4) or maghemite (Fe2O3) and are easy to produce through a few well-documented synthesis methods yielding different forms and structures (e.g., round, cubic, hexagonal, clusters, core–shell with gold, silica, polymers, or surfactants). A lot of research is

• hydrophobic surfaces that induce aggregation and/or the formation of large clusters. When in contact with biological structures, this mechanism provokes capillary clotting and reduces tissue and cellular absorption. To prevent this, nanoparticles are coated with stabilizers, which are added during preparation

• ]. Recently, SPIONs were observed to be good candidates for photothermal and photodynamic therapy, using near-infrared (700–2000 nm) laser excitation of the nanomaterial. For these therapies, SPIONs are theoretically preferred in larger clusters, although studies have shown that they can yield up to 12 °C

Wet-spinning of magneto-responsive helical chitosan microfibers

• Dorothea Brüggemann,
• Johanna Michel,
• Naiana Suter,
• Matheus Grande de Aguiar and
• Michael Maas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 991–999, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.83

• nanoparticles agglomerated into clusters inside the fiber matrix. The helical constructs exhibited a diameter of approximately 500 µm with one to two windings per millimeter. Due to their ferromagnetic properties they are easily attracted to a permanent magnet. The results from the tensile testing show that the

• components into the final product. By subsequent winding we produced helical-shaped fibers with a diameter of approximately 500 µm with one to two windings per millimeter. SEM analysis of wet-spun helical fibers revealed that the IOPs were distributed inside the fiber matrix in larger clusters of 100 nm

Band tail state related photoluminescence and photoresponse of ZnMgO solid solution nanostructured films

• Vadim Morari,
• Aida Pantazi,
• Nicolai Curmei,
• Vitalie Postolache,
• Emil V. Rusu,
• Marius Enachescu,
• Ion M. Tiginyanu and
• Veaceslav V. Ursaki

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 899–910, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.75

• to some Zn clusters [43]. A peak at 40.5° marked with an asterisk in Figure 6b was previously found in ZnO nanopowders prepared by the sol–gel method with zinc acetate dihydrate as a precursor [44]. In contrast to this, only peaks related to the Zn0.8Mg0.2O phase are observed in the film annealed at

Simulations of the 2D self-assembly of tripod-shaped building blocks

• Łukasz Baran,
• Wojciech Rżysko and
• Edyta Słyk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 884–890, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.73

• patterns in the experimental results. The results of our analysis can be found in Figure 3. One can see in Figure 3a that the ordering starts at relatively high temperatures (cf. Figure 2), around T* = 0.62–0.64. Nevertheless, by cooling down the systems we can obtain larger clusters, which is a well-known

• diffraction pattern, which means that there are a lot of differently oriented clusters in the system. We have very recently shown that this issue can lead to the wrong interpretation of results [39]. One of the possible solutions to that is to take a fragment of the configuration and to the compute

Nickel nanoparticles supported on a covalent triazine framework as electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reactions

• Secil Öztürk,
• Yu-Xuan Xiao,
• Dennis Dietrich,
• Beatriz Giesen,
• Juri Barthel,
• Jie Ying,
• Xiao-Yu Yang and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 770–781, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.62

• a lower but still measurable Ni count on the seemingly bare CTF shards (point 2). Thus, we conclude that nickel atoms are both found accumulated as larger NP agglomerates on the surface and as smaller nickel clusters. The smaller clusters can either reside on the surface or be included in the CTF

Electromigration-induced directional steps towards the formation of single atomic Ag contacts

• Atasi Chatterjee,
• Christoph Tegenkamp and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 680–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.55

• various types of clusters, and their attachment to the environment to one-dimensional (1D) properties of atomic chains and contacts have been treated in many different studies [1][2][3][4]. However, this topic is not only of pure scientific interest, it is also relevant in the context of the reliable

• wide Ag contact results in clear unidirectional material transport, as seen by the large clusters preferentially formed on the right-hand side of Figure 1b, appearing as white spots. However, a filamentous structure is always formed on the left-hand side, which neither allows one to identify the exact

Silver-decorated gel-shell nanobeads: physicochemical characterization and evaluation of antibacterial properties

• Marta Bartel,
• Katarzyna Markowska,
• Marcin Strawski,
• Krystyna Wolska and
• Maciej Mazur

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 620–630, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.49

• antimicrobial activity of the nanobeads for both strains. One can also notice that for the S. aureus biofilm only small clusters of dead cells, close to the spaces and interruptions in the biofilm, structure are seen. These changes in the structure of the biofilm were not present in the control sample

Luminescent gold nanoclusters for bioimaging applications

• Nonappa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 533–546, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.42

• complexes and SCQD-based nanomaterials. To improve the quantum yield and PL, various approaches have been developed including ligand engineering, selective doping to create alloy clusters, aggregation-induced emission, selective etching and self-assembly [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. Ligands

• the cytoplasm as well as in the nucleus. Muhammed et al. reported brightly NIR-emitting Au23 and Au25 NCs using single-phase and biphasic etching of [Au25(SG)18] (Figure 4B) [87]. The Au23 clusters were selectively conjugated with streptavidin for a specific labeling of cells. Here the strong binding

DFT calculations of the structure and stability of copper clusters on MoS₂

• Cara-Lena Nies and
• Michael Nolan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 391–406, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.30

• vacancy on the adsorption energy and geometry of single Cu adatoms and the Cu4 clusters. The results of this investigation show that the stability of small Cun clusters on a MoS2 ML is driven mainly by Cu–Cu interactions and not dependent on whether the cluster is 2D or 3D. Further, the density-of-states

• , compared to the various 2D structures. While site 1 continued to be less favourable than sites 2 and 3 for the 2D configurations, for the 3D adsorption mode this difference disappears, with similar binding energies for all sites, suggesting that once 3D clusters begin to form on MoS2 the binding energy is

• (2D) and two configurations are 3D nanoclusters. For the flat adsorption structures, the four Cu atoms are adsorbed in a linear configuration, with Cu–Cu distances of around 3.2 Å, depending on the adsorption site, or in a 4-membered flat structure. In the 3D clusters, one configuration is a rhombus

Formation of nanoripples on ZnO flat substrates and nanorods by gas cluster ion bombardment

• Xiaomei Zeng,
• Vasiliy Pelenovich,
• Bin Xing,
• Rakhim Rakhimov,
• Wenbin Zuo,
• Alexander Tolstogouzov,
• Chuansheng Liu,
• Dejun Fu and
• Xiangheng Xiao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 383–390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.29

• and ion fluence were 10 kV and 4 × 1016 clusters/cm2, respectively. Scratches and pits of 50–100 nm in size and 5 nm in depth are visible on the substrate surface before irradiation (Figure 2a and Figure 3a). After irradiation at θ = 0° the scratches and pits disappeared and features ca. 10 nm in size

• homogeneously dispersed all over the surface formed (Figure 2b and Figure 3b). These surface features can exhibit overlapped craters formed after collisions of the accelerated clusters with the surface. The surface roughness after normal cluster irradiation slightly decreases from initial 0.8 nm to 0.6 nm

• developed and wavelength and height of the ripples calculated from the bottom drift line surface increase (Figure 4b and Table 1). This behavior is in agreement with data obtained for SiO2 films and gold surfaces bombarded with Ar clusters [19][22]. The process of ripple formation is triggered by the

Implementation of data-cube pump–probe KPFM on organic solar cells

• Benjamin Grévin,
• Olivier Bardagot and
• Renaud Demadrille

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 323–337, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.24

• compositional and/or morphological heterogeneities generating the dark-state SP and SPV contrast play also a key role in the photocarrier trapping process. A reasonable (yet to be definitely confirmed) scenario could invoke the existence of non-percolating PC71BM clusters acting as trapping centers. Such an

Fabrication of Ag-modified hollow titania spheres via controlled silver diffusion in Ag–TiO₂ core–shell nanostructures

• Bartosz Bartosewicz,
• Malwina Liszewska,
• Bogusław Budner,
• Marta Michalska-Domańska,
• Krzysztof Kopczyński and
• Bartłomiej J. Jankiewicz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 141–146, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.12

• Ag–TiO2 CSNs, silver cores were fully converted to Ag species (i.e., positively charged Ag clusters as discussed below or other subnanometric silver species) embedded in a titania shell or smaller AgNPs located at the shell surface (Figure 2 E). To the best of our knowledge, the silver diffusion in

• in Ag@TiO2 CSNs can occur in the following manner. Titania is oxidized in an air atmosphere and as a result, holes, which may further oxidize AgNPs surrounded by the titania shell, are generated. Upon oxidation, AgNPs gain a positive electric charge and may eject positively charged Ag clusters. In

• case of Ag@TiO2 CSNs and depending on the annealing time, these ejected Ag clusters may either be accommodated within or on the titania shell. In the titania shell, these silver clusters could react with the TiO2 host through the formation of a complex [Ag–(TiO2)] [21]. Upon reaching the surface of the

Molecular architectonics of DNA for functional nanoarchitectures

• Debasis Ghosh,
• Lakshmi P. Datta and
• Thimmaiah Govindaraju

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 124–140, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.11

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

• contain preformed perovskite clusters, which can be rapidly (within 20 s) deposited on a substrate of an area larger than 100 cm2. The MAPbI3 films formed by the wire-bar (D-bar) coating technique were highly oriented. Smooth high-quality perovskite films with an average PCE of 17.01% were obtained

Long-term stability and scale-up of noncovalently bound gold nanoparticle-siRNA suspensions

• Anna V. Epanchintseva,
• Julia E. Poletaeva,
• Dmitrii V. Pyshnyi,
• Elena I. Ryabchikova and
• Inna A. Pyshnaya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2568–2578, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.248

• suspension at 4 °C for different times resulted in the formation of particle clusters of high colloidal stability as demonstrated by conventional methods. These clusters completely disintegrated when albumin was added, indicating that they are agglomerates (and not aggregates) of AuNP-siRNA. The AuNPs-siRNA

• and Figure 3A). The appearance of rounded clusters of AuNP-siRNA with a diameter of not more than 200 nm was a consequence of aggregation/agglomeration of particles over the course of one day (Figure 3E). The particles in the clusters were arranged in several layers and were distinguishable. The

• scanning probe image processor (SPIP) analysis of the TEM image showed a predominance of clusters with a size of up to 100 nm in samples ×1 and ×10 (85–90% of the total number of clusters); about 10% of clusters had a size of 100–200 nm. Thus, the TEM study showed a tendency towards clumping of the AuNP

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

• synthesize clusters, so-called colloidal molecules [21]. Nanospherical satellites were covalently bonded via amide groups within the dimples of valence-endowed patchy nanoparticles, allowing the tuning of their topology and self-assembling ability. Polyion complex micelles formed by complexation between poly

• is the focus of an article reporting the performance of functionalized gold clusters deposited on ZrO2 nanoparticles for benzyl alcohol oxidation in [39]. Interestingly, the defunctionalized gold nanoclusters exhibit full catalytic conversion. Overall, this thematic issue clearly highlights not only

Formation of metal/semiconductor Cu–Si composite nanostructures

• Natalya V. Yumozhapova,
• Andrey V. Nomoev,
• Vyacheslav V. Syzrantsev and
• Erzhena C. Khartaeva

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2497–2504, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.240

• Verlet algorithm. The visualisation and analysis of the simulation results was carried out in the OVITO program [26][27]. Figure 2 shows clusters with different silicon content at 1.5 ns after the start of simulation. As revealed in [23], with a low silicon content of 10 atom %, a core–shell structure is

• structure, in particular, the size and phase composition of the nanoparticles has been presented in [5]. The analysis of the obtained data on atomic dynamics in nanoscale clusters showed that at a cooling rate of 1.5 K/ps, a core–shell structure is formed in 70% of the clusters and the Janus-like structure

• is formed in 30% of the clusters. In the obtained cluster structures, twinning prevails as a mixture of the icosahedral (IR) and dodecahedral (DK) phase (Figure 3a). With a decrease in the cooling rate to 1 K/ps, the probability of the formation of the Janus-like structure increases to 50%. In

Label-free highly sensitive probe detection with novel hierarchical SERS substrates fabricated by nanoindentation and chemical reaction methods

• Jingran Zhang,
• Tianqi Jia,
• Yongda Yan,
• Li Wang,
• Peng Miao,
• Yimin Han,
• Xinming Zhang,
• Guangfeng Shi,
• Yanquan Geng,
• Zhankun Weng,
• Daniel Laipple and
• Zuobin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2483–2496, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.239

• beam lithography and self-assembly methods to fabricate gold clusters of micrometer size and regular spacing. Subsequently, the detection resolution of 4-acetamidothiophenol was 0.05 g/L using the substrate. Nanoparticle cluster array structures with a size of 40 nm were fabricated by electron beam

• pyramidal hierarchical SERS substrates with higher sensitivity can be achieved. Therefore, the combination of Ag nanoparticle clusters on the pile-up of copper surface leads to a new nanogap and improves the density of SERS hotspots. The electric field intensity of the hierarchical substrate on the pile-ups

Dynamics of superparamagnetic nanoparticles in viscous liquids in rotating magnetic fields

• Nikolai A. Usov,
• Ruslan A. Rytov and
• Vasiliy A. Bautin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2294–2303, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.221

• ]. Inside the cells magnetic nanoparticles usually form dense clusters tightly bound to the surrounding tissues [21][22][23][24], so that the rotation of a nanoparticle as a whole in AMF is difficult or completely absent. Thus, the AMF energy absorption is only associated with the dynamics of the magnetic

Targeted therapeutic effect against the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 with a CuFe₂O₄/silica/cisplatin nanocomposite formulation

• B. Rabindran Jermy,
• Vijaya Ravinayagam,
• Widyan A. Alamoudi,
• Dana Almohazey,
• Hatim Dafalla,
• Lina Hussain Allehaibi,
• Abdulhadi Baykal,
• Muhammet S. Toprak and
• Thirunavukkarasu Somanathan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2217–2228, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.214

• nanometer-sized copper spinel clusters over HYPS (Figure 5). The particle size reduction tends to decrease the saturation magnetization. In particular, noncollinear spin arrangements present at the external nanoparticle surface play a major role, which in influences the response of the material to the

Mannosylated brush copolymers based on poly(ethylene glycol) and poly(ε-caprolactone) as multivalent lectin-binding nanomaterials

• Stefania Ordanini,
• Wanda Celentano,
• Anna Bernardi and
• Francesco Cellesi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2192–2206, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.212

• ]. When multivalent carbohydrate compounds bridge multiple Con A tetramers, insoluble clusters are formed, turning the originally transparent solution turbid (Figure 6B). Each single macromolecule may interact with many Con A receptors, although steric effects prevent binding of every mannose residue [38

• multivalent fashion, leading to an increase of turbidity. Interestingly, turbidity was not observed with the monovalent compound PEG9-PCL1-Man1, suggesting that the polymer and the resulting nanosized colloid in water do not have a suitable valency for the formation of Con A clusters. We assumed that the

• showed a similar behavior as A4-PEG8-PCL2-Man2, but it reached a much lower plateau, which indicated the formation of smaller colloidal clusters when the valency was reduced from 8 to 4. Moreover, the octavalent compound seemed to bound Con A more slowly (k-octa = 0.32 AU/min vs k-tetra = 0.41 AU/min

Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond for nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging applications

• Alberto Boretti,
• Lorenzo Rosa,
• Jonathan Blackledge and
• Stefania Castelletto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2128–2151, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.207

• positive or negative imaging contrast for resolution as fine as cell clusters. The more precise the imaging that is required, the higher is the dose of the contrast medium that is necessary. This poses a question of possible toxicity that must be adequately considered and ultimately constitutes a key

Microbubbles decorated with dendronized magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical imaging: effective stabilization via fluorous interactions

• Da Shi,
• Justine Wallyn,
• Dinh-Vu Nguyen,
• Francis Perton,
• Delphine Felder-Flesch,
• Sylvie Bégin-Colin,
• Mounir Maaloum and
• Marie Pierre Krafft

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2103–2115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.205

• physiological media [30]. To the best of our knowledge, the implementation of dendronized IONPs in phospholipid-shelled MBs has not yet been reported. This approach is expected to combine some advantages over existing methods, including the ability to graft isolated IONPs instead of clusters at the MB surface

The importance of design in nanoarchitectonics: multifractality in MACE silicon nanowires

• Stefania Carapezzi and
• Anna Cavallini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2094–2102, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.204

• according to literature [38], and a Poisson’s ratio of 0.22. The values of ARcrit thus obtained range from 2.2 to 1.5, while the aspect ratios of the NWs are of 555 for sample SiNW1 and of 144 for sample SiNW2. This confirms theoretically the stability of the observed NW clusters. The process of self

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

• -magnification image of a THPC gold-seeded pDADMAC-modified pNIPAM-co-AAc hydrogel core particle. Due to insufficient electron density in the pNIPAM-co-AAc, the polymer core is not visible by TEM. However, due to the consistent size measurements of the gold clusters, and the absence of randomness in the gold