Engineering of oriented carbon nanotubes in composite materials

• Razieh Beigmoradi,
• Abdolreza Samimi and
• Davod Mohebbi-Kalhori

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 415–435, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.41

• . This method is also used to produce electrical contacts with individual CNTs [28][106][107]; and recently, the ability of the technique has been investigated to purify metallic SWCNTs from the mixture species [106]. Magnetic field The alignment of CNTs using a magnetic field is a unique technique

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

• microscope [8][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In situ studies of the dynamics of force interactions, conductance and adhesion in gold point contacts using combined transmission electron microscopy/scanning tunnelling microscopy (TEM-STM) [51][52] and atomic force microscopy/transmission electron microscopy (AFM

• electrical contact between a switching element and a contact electrode, which is followed by electrical-current-assisted processes in the on state, and a subsequent disengagement of both electrical and mechanical contacts while switching back to the off state. The switching cycle is based on balancing

• switching element from the contact [71] by nearly an order of magnitude. Processes in NEM switch contacts A reliable NEM switch contact is required to maintain stable characteristics over repetitive operation cycles. Assuming the switch is in an optimal operational environment, the contact properties are

Combined scanning probe electronic and thermal characterization of an indium arsenide nanowire

• Tino Wagner,
• Fabian Menges,
• Heike Riel,
• Bernd Gotsmann and
• Andreas Stemmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 129–136, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.15

• processes at the interface to electrodes may dominate and limit device performance. A crucial step towards device optimization is being able to separate such contact effects from intrinsic device properties. Likewise, an increased local temperature due to Joule heating at contacts and the formation of hot

• operation. The observed temperature along the wire is substantially elevated near the contacts and deviates from the bell-shaped temperature profile one would expect from homogeneous heating. Voltage profiles acquired by Kelvin probe force microscopy not only allow us to determine the electrical nanowire

• ][25]. As seen in our data, the temperature profiles do not follow this trend, but instead show an inverse parabola with increased temperatures towards the electrical contacts. Similar temperature profiles were observed already in previous measurements of a 120 nm diameter InAs nanowire [12]. This

Comparative study of post-growth annealing of Cu(hfac)₂, Co₂(CO)₈ and Me₂Au(acac) metal precursors deposited by FEBID

• Marcos V. Puydinger dos Santos,
• Aleksandra Szkudlarek,
• Artur Rydosz,
• Carlos Guerra-Nuñez,
• Fanny Béron,
• Kleber R. Pirota,
• Stanislav Moshkalev,
• José Alexandre Diniz and
• Ivo Utke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 91–101, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.11

• metals, makes its localised direct-write deposition attractive for applications in high-performance integrated circuits and nanoelectronics [13][27]. Similarly, Au nanostructures are promising materials in nanoplasmonics, biomedical applications, electrochemical sensing, as well as contacts for carbon

The rational design of a Au(I) precursor for focused electron beam induced deposition

• Ali Marashdeh,
• Thiadrik Tiesma,
• Niels J. C. van Velzen,
• Sjoerd Harder,
• Remco W. A. Havenith,
• Jeff T. M. De Hosson and
• Willem F. van Dorp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2753–2765, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.274

• ). In contrast, two molecules in the unit cell show Au∙∙∙Au contacts > 4.0 Å and should basically be considered monomeric. The clearly less pronounced formation of aurophilic bonds in MeAuPMe3 compared to ClAuPMe3 should likely be explained by a difference in electronic factors instead of sterics: the

Dry adhesives from carbon nanofibers grown in an open ethanol flame

• Christian Lutz,
• Julia Syurik,
• C. N. Shyam Kumar,
• Christian Kübel,
• Michael Bruns and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2719–2728, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.271

• a maximum adhesion energy of 75 fJ at a preload force of 4 μN. Randomly oriented CNFs show a maximum adhesion energy of 47 fJ at a preload force of 3.4 μN. This can be explained with the contact-splitting theory [31] stating that adhesion rises with the number of contacts per area. From SEM images

Exploring wear at the nanoscale with circular mode atomic force microscopy

• Olivier Noel,
• Aleksandar Vencl and
• Pierre-Emmanuel Mazeran

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2662–2668, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.266

• the Experimental section for details). This material is of industrial relevance as it is widely used in electrical sliding contacts such as those in railway overhead current collection system, lead frames in large-scale integrated circuitd, welding electrodes, transfer switches and electrical contact

Enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting performance using morphology-controlled BiVO₄ with W doping

• Xin Zhao and
• Zhong Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2640–2647, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.264

• the surface charge injection (inset in Figure 6b) [25]. In the equivalent circuit, Rs represents the sum of resistance values of the FTO film, the external electrical contacts, and the liquid electrolyte; Rct and Cbulk represent, respectively, the direct charge transfer resistance, and a capacitance

The role of ligands in coinage-metal nanoparticles for electronics

• Ioannis Kanelidis and
• Tobias Kraus

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2625–2639, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.263

• inks colloidally stable, but they may prevent electrical contacts in deposited films [32]. Charge transport can be improved after deposition by removing the surface-bound ligands [105], by linking nanoparticles chemically [106], or by ligand exchange in order to manipulate spacing in metal nanoparticle

Synthesis of [{AgO₂CCH₂OMe(PPh₃)}_n] and theoretical study of its use in focused electron beam induced deposition

• Jelena Tamuliene,
• Julian Noll,
• Peter Frenzel,
• Tobias Rüffer,
• Alexander Jakob,
• Bernhard Walfort and
• Heinrich Lang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2615–2624, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.262

• Ag–Ag contacts between these AgPO2 were observed [15][16]. In case of 2 a related stabilization of the AgPO2 units is not observed, although the formation of an additional dative O–Ag bond is noticed (Figure 1) to give a [3 + 1] coordination setup around the silver(I) ions. This bonding motif is most

Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy of difurylethene-based photochromic single-molecule junctions

• Youngsang Kim,
• Safa G. Bahoosh,
• Dmytro Sysoiev,
• Thomas Huhn,
• Fabian Pauly and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2606–2614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.261

• motor and a differential screw. The low-bias conductance is measured by a sub-femtoamp source-meter (Keithley 6430) operating with an automatic variable gain pre-amplifier, while controlling the nanogap distance and thereby breaking and forming Au–Au contacts. In order to measure IET spectra, a DC bias

• reversed by closing the junction until Au–Au contacts form again. The breaking and forming processes are repeated roughly 1000 times to find the most probable single-molecule conductance. We note that the plateaus are well developed with a rather constant conductance upon stretching in the closed form

• traces shown in Figure 1c it becomes clear that multiple steps occur within the individual opening processes. These multiple steps might originate from multi-molecule contacts as well as from a single-molecule junction that adopts different configurations upon stretching. We assume that the most

Numerical investigation of the tribological performance of micro-dimple textured surfaces under hydrodynamic lubrication

• Kangmei Li,
• Dalei Jing,
• Jun Hu,
• Xiaohong Ding and
• Zhenqiang Yao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2324–2338, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.232

• tribological performance of lubricated contacts [5][6][7][8][9]. In Kligerman and Etsion’s study [5], the pressure distribution in the uniform clearance between the annular surfaces is obtained from a solution of the Reynolds equation for compressible viscous gas in a laminar flow. Wang et al. [6] calculated

Substrate and Mg doping effects in GaAs nanowires

• Perumal Kannappan,
• Nabiha Ben Sedrine,
• Jennifer P. Teixeira,
• Maria R. Soares,
• Bruno P. Falcão,
• Maria R. Correia,
• Nestor Cifuentes,
• Emilson R. Viana,
• Marcus V. B. Moreira,
• Geraldo M. Ribeiro,
• Alfredo G. de Oliveira,
• Juan C. González and
• Joaquim P. Leitão

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2126–2138, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.212

• μm on individual nanowires. Following this procedure, ohmic contacts with acceptable low contact resistance are obtained [19]. Figure 1a presents an optical image of a FET in which the nanowire and electrical contacts are observed. The TEM image at the bottom of Figure 1a shows the typical morphology

Electronic structure, transport, and collective effects in molecular layered systems

• Torsten Hahn,
• Tim Ludwig,
• Carsten Timm and
• Jens Kortus

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2094–2105, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.209

• between the organic molecules and metallic contacts. These interactions may substantially alter the electronic structure of the organic material and needs to be carefully investigated [24]. In the following, we present DFT results for model systems were two phthalocyanine systems are in contact with Au

• assume β-stacking [25]. The selected Au surface is known to form metal–organic contacts with medium interactions [26]. On the other hand, pure Ni surfaces are known to have a very high reactivity that sometimes lead to decomposition of the deposited organic material [27][28]. The reactivity of the Ni

• ferromagnetic Fe thin film exhibits pronounced spin dependence. These investigations suggest the possibility of versatile applications in spintronic devices. The calculations on model systems with gold contacts show that it is possible to obtain spin-polarized currents from both phthalocyanine-based devices

Adsorbate-driven cooling of carbene-based molecular junctions

• Giuseppe Foti and
• Héctor Vázquez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2060–2068, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.206

• ) and right (R) contacts and tends to drive the system to the Bose–Einstein (BE) distribution of the bath at a temperature T0 (see below). For Jλ = 0, energy cannot be dissipated into bulk phonons and the junction is in the undamped limit [29]. On the other hand, for large Jλ, coupling to Au phonons is

A comparative study of the nanoscale and macroscale tribological attributes of alumina and stainless steel surfaces immersed in aqueous suspensions of positively or negatively charged nanodiamonds

• Colin K. Curtis,
• Antonin Marek,
• Alex I. Smirnov and
• Jacqueline Krim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2045–2059, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.205

• to values in the range 0.05–0.1 for both stainless steel and alumina, while +ND suspensions yielded an increase in friction for stainless steel contacts but little to no increase for alumina contacts. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy

• existing protective boundary layers in the case of stainless steel contacts. This study therefore reveals atomic scale details associated with systems that exhibit starkly different macroscale tribological properties, enabling future efforts to predict and design complex lubricant interfaces. Keywords

• penetrating into contacts where they may form boundary films and/or act as rolling or sliding spacers (Figure 1) [6][10][11]. As such, nanoparticles exhibit a great potential for replacement of the centuries-old oil-based lubricating technologies. Tribological studies of water-based nanoparticle suspensions

Imidazolium-based ionic liquids used as additives in the nanolubrication of silicon surfaces

• Patrícia M. Amorim,
• Ana M. Ferraria,
• Rogério Colaço,
• Luís C. Branco and
• Benilde Saramago

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1961–1971, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.197

• of ceramics. Other investigators followed this idea and added imidazolium-based ILs to base oils to lubricate steel/aluminum contacts [5][6][7] and steel/steel contacts [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Jiménez and Bermúdez [7] tested two ILs with the short alkyl chain imidazolium cation [EMIM], and the anions

Growth and characterization of textured well-faceted ZnO on planar Si(100), planar Si(111), and textured Si(100) substrates for solar cell applications

• Chin-Yi Tsai,
• Jyong-Di Lai,
• Shih-Wei Feng,
• Chien-Jung Huang,
• Chien-Hsun Chen,
• Fann-Wei Yang,
• Hsiang-Chen Wang and
• Li-Wei Tu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1939–1945, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.194

• granular structure [3]. Similarly, ZnO grown on bulk silicon substrates and their application to wafer-based silicon solar cells is an interesting issue and an important subject [3]. In such a case, these materials potentially not only act as metal contacts to eliminate the blocking of the incident

Non-intuitive clustering of 9,10-phenanthrenequinone on Au(111)

• Ryan D. Brown,
• Rebecca C. Quardokus,
• Natalie A. Wasio,
• Jacob P. Petersen,
• Angela M. Silski,
• Steven A. Corcelli and
• S. Alex Kandel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1801–1807, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.181

• for the observed 9,10-phenanthrenequinone rows and 9-fluorenone rows, respectively. Figure 6 displays the calculated structure of pairwise interactions in the linear rows for both molecules. It is evident that the 9,10-phenanthrenequinone dimer has more hydrogen-bonding contacts and is, thus, more

• structures (red), and regions of a close-packed domain (blue). The calculated structure of pairwise interactions in linear rows for (a) 9,10-phenanthrenequinone and (b) 9-fluorenone with the C-H···O hydrogen-bond contacts indicated in green. Acknowledgements This research was supported by funding from the

Air–water interface of submerged superhydrophobic surfaces imaged by atomic force microscopy

• Markus Moosmann,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Wilhelm Barthlott and
• Matthias Mail

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1671–1679, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.167

• of values obtained by scanning with different forces. Moreover, by taking force–distance curves, we were able to predict a model for the contact between the AFM tip and air–water interface, indicating that only the apex of the tip contacts the interface during imaging. The methods presented

Process-specific mechanisms of vertically oriented graphene growth in plasmas

• Subrata Ghosh,
• Shyamal R. Polaki,
• Niranjan Kumar,
• Sankarakumar Amirthapandian,
• Mohamed Kamruddin and
• Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1658–1670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.166

• -probe contacts and an Agilent B2902A precision source/measure unit was used to estimate sheet resistance in van der Pauw geometry. Author contributions S. G. planned, performed the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. S. R. P. carried out scanning electron microscopy. S. R. P., N. K

Group-13 and group-15 doping of germanane

• Nicholas D. Cultrara,
• Maxx Q. Arguilla,
• Shishi Jiang,
• Chuanchuan Sun,
• Michael R. Scudder,
• R. Dominic Ross and
• Joshua E. Goldberger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1642–1648, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.164

• oxidation of As occurs. The As 2p3/2 peak centered at 1323 eV in as-grown As:GeH starts disappearing in favor of a 1326.1 eV [35] oxidized state. The effect of dopants on the electronic transport of single-crystal flakes of Ga:GeH and As:GeH were measured with contacts fabricated by using a shadow mask

• technique (Figure 5b). Two-probe I–V measurements were carried out on single crystals with device geometries that typically featured a channel length of 25 µm, a width of 2–4 mm and a thickness of 5–20 µm (Figure 5b). After exploring numerous metals, nearly ohmic contacts (under vacuum) to Ga:GeH were

• observed using 100 nm Au as a contact metal. Furthermore, the highest ambient and vacuum conductivities in As:GeH were achieved when contacting with Ag (80 nm)/Au (20 nm). The fact that Au with its higher work function is needed to make ohmic contacts for Ga:GeH, compared to Ag for As:GeH, suggests that Ga

Parylene C as a versatile dielectric material for organic field-effect transistors

• Tomasz Marszalek,
• Maciej Gazicki-Lipman and
• Jacek Ulanski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1532–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.155

• . Parylene C forms transparent, pinhole-free conformal coatings of thicknesses as low as 0.1 μm with excellent dielectric and mechanical properties. Increasing thickness to 0.2 mm suffices to uniformly cover rough colloidal-graphite contacts. Transistors with rubrene as semiconductor and parylene as

• configuration (0.02 cm2/Vs) [58]. Changes in the surface energy between Parylene C (bottom gate, top contacts) and glass with gold electrodes (top gate, bottom contacts) are the main factor responsible for variations in the organization of semiconductor molecules. Additionally, parameters such as wettability

• characteristics measured during the continuous bias stress of 125 h. (a) Bottom-gate, top-contacts, (b) top-gate, bottom-contacts, and (c) dual-gate OFETs. Reprinted from [54], copyright 2014 American Chemical Society. Volumetric reconstruction of the Parylene C-coated microscopy glass (left, atop) and calculated

Charge transport in organic nanocrystal diodes based on rolled-up robust nanomembrane contacts

• Vineeth Kumar Bandari,
• Lakshmi Varadharajan,
• Longqian Xu,
• Abdur Rehman Jalil,
• Mirunalini Devarajulu,
• Pablo F. Siles,
• Feng Zhu and
• Oliver G. Schmidt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1277–1282, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.129

• challenge due to difficulties in creating non-destructive contacts [14][15][16]. Although there have been remarkable advances in the methods for vertically contacting a variety of organic thin films, one of the main challenges to perform such fabrication still lies in the preparation of reliable vertical

• ], indirect evaporation [22][23], ‘ready-made’ approaches [24][25], and robust mechanical contacts [26][27][28][29], the rolled-up nanotechnology provides the precise positioned electrodes and high fabrication yield of array devices, and does not require the chemical modification of functional organic layers

• previous report, organic nanocrystal diodes have been successfully developed, in which rolled-up nanomembranes provide robust contacts to fully unleash the advantages of organic nanocrystals for sensing gas molecules [19]. Apart from the demonstration of functional nanodevices, the investigation and

Metal oxide nanostructures: preparation, characterization and functional applications as chemical sensors

• Dario Zappa,
• Angela Bertuna,
• Elisabetta Comini,
• Navpreet Kaur,
• Nicola Poli,
• Veronica Sberveglieri and
• Giorgio Sberveglieri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1205–1217, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.122

• transducer. In order to have a stable chemical sensor, not only the active material, but all the components of the device, such as electrical contacts and heating system, must be stable and reliable. The scope of this manuscript is to present different techniques for the preparation of nanostructures, and to