Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

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

• mesoporous metal oxide (TiO2) scaffold [67]. Later, it was recognized that Pb-based HPs are incomparably more efficient when applied as light harvesters in photovoltaic planar or bulk heterojunction solar cells. Such cells have two designs – a “conventional” n–i–p design with a HP layer deposited onto the

• metal oxide electron transport layer (ETL) and then covered with an organic hole transport layer (HTL) and an “inverted” p–i–n design, where an HP layer is formed on an HTL support and covered with an organic ETL, such as fullerene derivatives (see below in Figure 2). The conventional n–i–p scheme

Electrospun one-dimensional nanostructures: a new horizon for gas sensing materials

• Muhammad Imran,
• Nunzio Motta and
• Mahnaz Shafiei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2128–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.202

• materials used as an active sensing layer, including polymers, metal oxide semiconductors, graphene, and their composites or their functionalized forms. The material properties of these electrospun fibers and their sensing performance toward different analytes are explained in detail and correlated to the

• review and summarize the fabrication of electrospun 1D nanostructures based on diverse range of materials (including polymers, metal oxide semiconductors, graphene, and their composites or their functionalized forms) and their gas sensing performance in all available sensing architectures (including

• electrospun nanofibers as the sensing layer. These materials include: metal oxide (MOx) semiconductors (e.g., SnO2, TiO2, SiO2) [83][84], doped MOx semiconductors [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], composite materials made of MOx semiconducting materials (e.g., ZnO-In2O3) [86], conducting polymer-based gas sensors

Phosphorus monolayer doping (MLD) of silicon on insulator (SOI) substrates

• Noel Kennedy,
• Ray Duffy,
• Luke Eaton,
• Dan O’Connell,
• Scott Monaghan,
• Shane Garvey,
• James Connolly,
• Chris Hatem,
• Justin D. Holmes and
• Brenda Long

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2106–2113, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.199

• being deemed detrimental to current and future device production. Semiconductor substrates require doping to reduce their resistivity and enable their use in electronic devices such as metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Traditionally, ex situ doping was carried out using ion

Localized photodeposition of catalysts using nanophotonic resonances in silicon photocathodes

• Evgenia Kontoleta,
• Sven H. C. Askes,
• Lai-Hung Lai and
• Erik C. Garnett

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2097–2105, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.198

• ][31]. An exception is the work of Li et al. [27], where charge separation was achieved at different crystal facets of BiVO4 nanocrystals for selective photodeposition of metal and metal oxide catalytic nanoparticles. Nevertheless, this method for the moment is limited to this specific material and

A scanning probe microscopy study of nanostructured TiO₂/poly(3-hexylthiophene) hybrid heterojunctions for photovoltaic applications

• Laurie Letertre,
• Roland Roche,
• Olivier Douhéret,
• Hailu G. Kassa,
• Denis Mariolle,
• Nicolas Chevalier,
• Łukasz Borowik,
• Philippe Dumas,
• Benjamin Grévin,
• Roberto Lazzaroni and
• Philippe Leclère

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2087–2096, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.197

• the electron acceptor materials commonly used for DSSC and HBHJ, titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a well-known metal oxide semiconductor [6][7][8]. Depending on its nanostructure and its crystalline phase, its conductivity varies from 10−4 Ω−1·cm−1 to 10−11 Ω−1·cm−1 [9][10]. TiO2 is very valuable because it

Electromigrated electrical optical antennas for transducing electrons and photons at the nanoscale

• Arindam Dasgupta,
• Mickaël Buret,
• Nicolas Cazier,
• Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil,
• Reinaldo Chacon,
• Kamal Hammani,
• Jean-Claude Weeber,
• Juan Arocas,
• Laurent Markey,
• Gérard Colas des Francs,
• Alexander Uskov,
• Igor Smetanin and
• Alexandre Bouhelier

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1964–1976, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.187

• (RF) data transmission between distant nodes is emerging as an alternative for wired physical waveguiding channels [4]. This approach is enabled by the availability of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible transceivers [5] and may offer cost-effective robust interconnects operating

• guide photons emitted by the junctions. For the operation at visible wavelengths waveguiding structures composed of TiO2 feature interesting material properties [60][61] such as broadband transparency, high refractive index, compatibility with complementary metal-oxide semiconductors and ease of

Synthesis of hafnium nanoparticles and hafnium nanoparticle films by gas condensation and energetic deposition

• Irini Michelakaki,
• Nikos Boukos,
• Dimitrios A. Dragatogiannis,
• Spyros Stathopoulos,
• Costas A. Charitidis and
• Dimitris Tsoukalas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1868–1880, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.179

• the functionality of metal NPs is profoundly affected by their size, shape and structure. For example, NPs with sharp edges reveal enhanced catalytic activity because they provide more active sites for catalytic reactions [11], the “small-size effect” of metal-oxide nanoparticles increases remarkably

• embedded into a metal-oxide layer, result in a completely new behavior of resistive switching compared with pristine metal-oxide layers, which is important for operation and understanding of nonvolatile resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) [20]. Furthermore except of size, shape and structure of NPs, a

• crucial issue affecting the performance of NTFs is their porosity. The availability of pores in metallic or metal-oxide NTFs and the tunability of their porosity [21], affects their optical [22] and electrical [23] properties, as well as corresponding applications, which can range from sensors [24] over

The role of the Ge mole fraction in improving the performance of a nanoscale junctionless tunneling FET: concept and scaling capability

• Hichem Ferhati,
• Fayçal Djeffal and
• Toufik Bentrcia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1856–1862, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.177

• -effect transistor (JL TFET); nanoscale; SiGe; Introduction In the last years, the continuous miniaturization of nanoscale transistors induces new challenges including short-channel effects (SCEs) and high power consumption, which prevent incorporating conventional metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect

Cryochemical synthesis of ultrasmall, highly crystalline, nanostructured metal oxides and salts

• Elena A. Trusova and
• Nikolai S. Trutnev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1755–1763, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.166

• solutions and suspensions using a swirler [15]. In this paper, we investigated the possibility of obtaining metal oxide and salt nanopowders from microemulsions and solutions using a cryochemical approach. It was shown that treatment of the stock solutions and sols with a liquid nitrogen stream (−196 °C

• using a hydraulic jet injector with a swirler, directing the spray torch into the liquid nitrogen environment (−196 °C), where cryogranulation took place. In the next step, the granules were exposed to freeze-drying and calcination, resulting in the production of metal oxide nanopowders (Ce, Fe or Ni

• diameter of the resulting metal oxide powders was many times smaller (3–18) than for materials prepared without cryotreatment of the sols (Table 1). Apparently, the beginning of crystallization and the formation of the nanoparticle surface occurred even under the ice shell in the cryosols. According to the

Controllable one-pot synthesis of uniform colloidal TiO₂ particles in a mixed solvent solution for photocatalysis

• Jong Tae Moon,
• Seung Ki Lee and
• Ji Bong Joo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1715–1727, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.163

• coating strategy using a mixed solvent was successfully applied for synthesizing core–shell nanostructures, to the best of our knowledge, there is no obvious report on sol–gel synthesis of uniform colloidal metal oxide particles such as TiO2 in a mixed solvent solution of ethanol–acetonitrile. In this

• synthetic progress of the formation and growth of the particle and to control the properties of the final products. On the other hand, the sol–gel process, which is carried out under atmospheric pressure conditions at near room temperature, is well known as a suitable method for producing colloidal metal

• oxide particles, such as SiO2, ZrO2 and TiO2 that have well-controlled characteristics [15][30][31]. We have previously reported a reproducible sol–gel coating method for producing SiO2@TiO2 core–shell nanostructures in the presence of a surfactant in pure ethanol solution [7][8]. In addition, another

Cr(VI) remediation from aqueous environment through modified-TiO₂-mediated photocatalytic reduction

• Rashmi Acharya,
• Brundabana Naik and
• Kulamani Parida

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1448–1470, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.137

• the nonsupported bulk TiO2 as well as calcined Fe3O4. In fact, 30% TiO2/Fe3O4 has shown the highest Cr(VI) photoreduction rate due to formation of effective heterojunction by the loading of 30% TiO2 over Fe3O4 [158]. Visible-light responsive, transition metal oxide modified TiO2 for photocatalytic

• have been reported on photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) by TiO2–p-type semiconductor metal oxide heterojunctions. The mechanism for visible-light-driven photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) on TiO2–p-type metal oxide heterojunctions is explained in Figure 9. Cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is a p-type

Surface characterization of nanoparticles using near-field light scattering

• Eunsoo Yoo,
• Yizhong Liu,
• Chukwuazam A. Nwasike,
• Sebastian R. Freeman,
• Brian C. DiPaolo,
• Bernardo Cordovez and
• Amber L. Doiron

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1228–1238, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.114

• microscope is efficient in characterization of polymer-coated nanoparticles. However, due to the fact that the nanoparticle scattering intensity depends on the dielectric constant of the material, multicomponent particle coatings, especially those on metallic or metal oxide materials such as those studied

Understanding the performance and mechanism of Mg-containing oxides as support catalysts in the thermal dry reforming of methane

• Nor Fazila Khairudin,
• Mohd Farid Fahmi Sukri,
• Mehrnoush Khavarian and
• Abdul Rahman Mohamed

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1162–1183, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.108

• addition, a high dispersion of metal particles enhances the interaction between metal and support, consequently reducing carbon deposition [40][41][42][43][44]. One other alternative for inhibiting carbon deposition, as suggested by researchers, is the application of a second metal oxide, such as alkali or

Room-temperature single-photon emitters in titanium dioxide optical defects

• Kelvin Chung,
• Yu H. Leung,
• Chap H. To,
• Aleksandra B. Djurišić and
• Snjezana Tomljenovic-Hanic

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1085–1094, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.100

• emission. ZnO is the only metal oxide reported to host single-photon emitting defects at room temperature and was recently shown to exhibit stable fluorescence when uptaken into skin cells, making it a viable biomarker [11]. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a well-studied wide-bandgap semiconductor, its

Review on nanoparticles and nanostructured materials: history, sources, toxicity and regulations

• Jaison Jeevanandam,
• Ahmed Barhoum,
• Yen S. Chan,
• Alain Dufresne and
• Michael K. Danquah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1050–1074, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.98

• production methods for these carbon-based materials fabrication (except carbon black) [8]. (ii) Inorganic-based nanomaterials: These NMs include metal and metal oxide NPs and NSMs. These NMs can be synthesized into metals such as Au or Ag NPs, metal oxides such as TiO2 and ZnO NPs, and semiconductors such as

Facile synthesis of a ZnO–BiOI p–n nano-heterojunction with excellent visible-light photocatalytic activity

• Mengyuan Zhang,
• Jiaqian Qin,
• Pengfei Yu,
• Bing Zhang,
• Mingzhen Ma,
• Xinyu Zhang and
• Riping Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 789–800, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.72

• heterojunctions could promote increased photocatalytic activity efficiency. Once the p–n junction has been formed, the inner electric field between the inner surface of two semiconductors will promote the separation efficiency of photoinduced electron–hole pairs [30][31]. Consequently, coupling an n-type metal

• oxide to a p-type BiOX to form a p–n heterojunction is an effective method to optimize the photocatalytic activity (summarized in Table S1, Supporting Information File 1). By now, several works have been published in this area. In 2009, Zhang et al. reported a low-temperature route to prepare TiO2/BiOI

Surface-plasmon-enhanced ultraviolet emission of Au-decorated ZnO structures for gas sensing and photocatalytic devices

• T. Anh Thu Do,
• Truong Giang Ho,
• Thu Hoai Bui,
• Quang Ngan Pham,
• Hong Thai Giang,
• Thi Thu Do,
• Duc Van Nguyen and
• Dai Lam Tran

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 771–779, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.70

• . Keywords: Au-decorated ZnO; carrier dynamics; gas sensors; photocatalyst; SPR effect; Introduction Inorganic transition metal oxide sensor devices have attracted attention in particular for improving gas sensing, energy conversion, electronics, photocatalysis and optoelectronic devices [1][2][3][4]. Among

• investigated for photocatalytic activity as reported previously [8][20]. The photocatalytic activity of the Pt/ZnO hybrid nanocomposite under photodegradation of rhodamine B (RhB) was higher compared to commercial TiO2 [21]. Here, it is quite reasonable to note that the plasmonic metal NP/metal-oxide

• precursors is higher, resulting in the core-spike architecture by minimizing the surface energy. It was found that the plasmonic metal nanomaterial/metal-oxide semiconductor structures were preferred as the nanometer-sized metal oxides for high photocatalytic activity and wide dispersion. However, in this

A review of carbon-based and non-carbon-based catalyst supports for the selective catalytic reduction of nitric oxide

• Shahreen Binti Izwan Anthonysamy,
• Syahidah Binti Afandi,
• Mehrnoush Khavarian and
• Abdul Rahman Bin Mohamed

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 740–761, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.68

• -exchange zeolite catalysts [15]. The Mn-based catalyst is one of the most active metal oxide catalysts for high N2 selectivity at low temperature and is recognised by many researchers as a potential alternative for the common catalyst. Jin et al. [16] successfully used a Mn-based catalyst with the addition

• polyol process using Cu(NO3)·3H2O as the copper precursor. To date, many researchers have reviewed the SCR of NO at low temperature. Li et al. [9] reviewed low-temperature SCR on metal oxide and zeolite catalysts with a focus on catalyst performance and taking into account other possible mechanisms

• method because: (i) it can form a more even distribution of metal component onto the support material, (ii) it can alter the catalyst porous structure using various foaming agents, (iii) it is able to synthesise the metal-supported catalyst in a single-step process, leading to a unique metal oxide

Combined pulsed laser deposition and non-contact atomic force microscopy system for studies of insulator metal oxide thin films

• Daiki Katsube,
• Hayato Yamashita,
• Satoshi Abo and
• Masayuki Abe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 686–692, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.63

• a combined system of pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) for observations of insulator metal oxide surfaces. With this system, the long-period iterations of sputtering and annealing used in conventional methods for preparing a metal oxide film surface are

• lattice constant of the metal oxides. To understand and apply these characteristics, various studies have been conducted thus far, including investigations of physical properties by growth of ultra-high-quality metal oxide thin films [2][3], discovery of novel physical properties by fabricating

• heterointerfaces using different metal oxides [4][5], and expression of conductivity and magnetism by doping metal oxides with specific elements [6][7]. In studies of metal oxide surfaces at the atomic scale, developments of observation techniques have been advancing rapidly, especially in the field of

Mechanistic insights into plasmonic photocatalysts in utilizing visible light

• Kah Hon Leong,
• Azrina Abd Aziz,
• Lan Ching Sim,
• Pichiah Saravanan,
• Min Jang and
• Detlef Bahnemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 628–648, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.59

• of the review was detailed through fundamental explanations together with the various synthesis routes. The review also clarified the mechanism of LSPR for the various noble metal nanoparticles in addition to the Schottky phenomenon on the studied metal oxide photocatalysts. An in-depth analysis on

Anchoring Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in a reduced graphene oxide aerogel matrix via polydopamine coating

• Błażej Scheibe,
• Radosław Mrówczyński,
• Natalia Michalak,
• Karol Załęski,
• Michał Matczak,
• Mateusz Kempiński,
• Zuzanna Pietralik,
• Mikołaj Lewandowski,
• Stefan Jurga and
• Feliks Stobiecki

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 591–601, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.55

• corresponding to metal oxide (grey arrows). This indicate that Fe3O4 and PDA@Fe3O4 nanoparticles are replacing the above mentioned functional groups and attach at the defects sites at the graphene lattice. In that way, the defects act as anchoring centers for the particles. This assignment was further confirmed

Photocatalytic and adsorption properties of TiO₂-pillared montmorillonite obtained by hydrothermally activated intercalation of titanium polyhydroxo complexes

• Mikhail F. Butman,
• Nikolay L. Ovchinnikov,
• Nikita S. Karasev,
• Nataliya E. Kochkina,
• Alexander V. Agafonov and
• Alexandr V. Vinogradov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 364–378, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.36

• , consists in carrying out a reaction of exchanging the interlayer cations of MM for positively charged titanium polyhydroxo complexes or TiO2 sol particles and subsequent thermal treatment to yield metal oxide nanocrystals (pillars) in the interlayer space of MM [3][5]. Pillarization of MM results in an

Review: Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based nanoelectromechanical switches – materials solutions and operational conditions

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Jelena Kosmaca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Jana Andzane and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 271–300, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.29

• possibility to tune the Young’s modulus by changing an element size combined with facile integration with existing complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices, make metals attractive candidates for the use in NEM switches. However, metal-based NEM components with nanometre-scale dimensions are

Synthesis and characterization of electrospun molybdenum dioxide–carbon nanofibers as sulfur matrix additives for rechargeable lithium–sulfur battery applications

• Ruiyuan Zhuang,
• Shanshan Yao,
• Maoxiang Jing,
• Xiangqian Shen,
• Jun Xiang,
• Tianbao Li,
• Kesong Xiao and
• Shibiao Qin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 262–270, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.28

• ], multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) [4] and hollow carbon microspheres [5]) and electrically conductive polymeric materials (e.g., polyaniline [6], polypyrrole [7] and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) [8]) have been considerably used to encapsulate sulfur or polysulfide. Recently, polar metal oxide/sulfide

• materials including SiO2 [9], TiO2 [10], MnO2 [11], Mg0.6Ni0.4O [12], TiS2 [13], CoS2 [14], and FeS2 [15] were found to be more highly effective in binding with sulfur species than carbon substrates, and were found to significantly improve the cycling behavior of Li–S batteries. However, these metal oxide

Anchoring of a dye precursor on NiO(001) studied by non-contact atomic force microscopy

• Sara Freund,
• Antoine Hinaut,
• Nathalie Marinakis,
• Edwin C. Constable,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Catherine E. Housecroft and
• Thilo Glatzel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 242–249, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.26

• that they are lying flat on the surface in a trans-conformation. Within the limits of our Kelvin probe microscopy setup a charge transfer from NiO to the molecular layer of 0.3 electrons per molecules was observed only in the areas where the molecules are closed packed. Keywords: metal oxide; nickel

• fundamental studies including those at the molecular or sub-molecular scale [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. In contrast, the synthesis and characterization of p-type wide band gap metal oxide materials and especially the fabrication and analysis of p-type DSSCs with a photoactive cathode, are less commonly

• discussed [15][16]. Such p-type DSSCs are a first step towards the fabrication of hybrid tandem solar cells where both electrodes will be photoactive allowing for higher open-circuit voltages and energy conversion efficiencies [15][17]. The first reported p-type wide band gap metal oxide material was NiO