Transformations of PTCDA structures on rutile TiO₂ induced by thermal annealing and intermolecular forces

• Szymon Godlewski,
• Jakub S. Prauzner-Bechcicki,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Ernst Meyer and
• Marek Szymoński

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1498–1507, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.155

• factors giving rise to such recognition of PTCDA molecules. First, PTCDA belongs to the group of intensive dyes and is applied in a wide range of optoelectronic devices, such as photosensors and organic light emitting diodes. Second, as flat molecules with delocalized π orbitals and a permanent quadrupole

High photocatalytic activity of V-doped SrTiO₃ porous nanofibers produced from a combined electrospinning and thermal diffusion process

• Panpan Jing,
• Wei Lan,
• Qing Su and
• Erqing Xie

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1281–1286, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.132

• seriously threatens aquatic organisms and human life. To purify the wastewater, several conventional treatment operations such as screening, sedimentation, and adsorption have been utilized [3]. Nevertheless, such operations cannot remove persistent and toxic soluble contaminants, such as organic dyes

Effects of swift heavy ion irradiation on structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites prepared by carbothermal evaporation method

• Sini Kuriakose,
• D. K. Avasthi and
• Satyabrata Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 928–937, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.96

• degradation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) dyes under sun light irradiation and it was observed that swift heavy ion irradiation results in significant enhancement in the photocatalytic efficiency of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites towards degradation of MB and MO dyes. The possible mechanism for the

• carbothermal reduction-based vapor deposition method. We have demonstrated that swift heavy ion irradiation can be employed to significantly enhance the sun light driven photocatalytic activity of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites toward the degradation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) dyes in water. Results

• lateral mass flow leading to the formation of larger nanorod like structures with increased width and distinct facets, as can be seen in Figure 1c and Figure 1d. The photocatalysis studies were carried out by taking MB and MO as model organic dyes to demonstrate the capability of ion beam engineering to

Silica micro/nanospheres for theranostics: from bimodal MRI and fluorescent imaging probes to cancer therapy

• Shanka Walia and
• Amitabha Acharya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 546–558, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.57

• ; organic dyes; quantum dots; silica nanospheres; theranostics; Review 1 Introduction In the modern era of medical diagnosis, X-rays have long played a major role in the clinical imaging of anatomical details of disease sites [1]. However, the development of suitable molecular diagnostic systems for

• (negative contrast, modified T2). Similarly the fluorescent CAs includes different lanthanide complexes, rare earth oxides, organic dyes, QDs, and ruthenium complexes. In this review article, we summarize recent literature reports on multifunctional nanocomposites for MRI and fluorescence imaging that are

• Lanthanide complex as magnetic and organic dyes as fluorescent probe Organic dyes are the most common fluorophores and have been studied for long time. The most common fluorophores include fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and rhodamine B (RhB). Kačenka et al. [17] reported the synthesis of hybrid NPs

Palladium nanoparticles anchored to anatase TiO₂ for enhanced surface plasmon resonance-stimulated, visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

• Kah Hon Leong,
• Hong Ye Chu,
• Shaliza Ibrahim and
• Pichiah Saravanan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 428–437, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.43

• plasmonic Au nanoparticles deposited on top of TiO2 [27]. While Mohapatra et al. had synthesized TiO2 nanotubes with palladium (Pd) NPs for the photocatalytic decomposition of azo dyes under sunlight irradiation. Pd/TiO2 nanotubes showed a faster degradation time (150 min) to completely decompose azo dye as

The effect of surface charge on nonspecific uptake and cytotoxicity of CdSe/ZnS core/shell quantum dots

• Vladimir V. Breus,
• Anna Pietuch,
• Marco Tarantola,
• Thomas Basché and
• Andreas Janshoff

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 281–292, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.26

• advantageous tools for fluorescent labeling that have gained major attention over the past decade from various fields of application in the life sciences [1][2][3][4][5][6]. They are typically brighter than conventional organic dyes, much more resistant against photobleaching and their size-dependent optical

Overview about the localization of nanoparticles in tissue and cellular context by different imaging techniques

• Anja Ostrowski,
• Daniel Nordmeyer,
• Alexander Boreham,
• Cornelia Holzhausen,
• Lars Mundhenk,
• Christina Graf,
• Martina C. Meinke,
• Annika Vogt,
• Sabrina Hadam,
• Jürgen Lademann,
• Eckart Rühl,
• Ulrike Alexiev and
• Achim D. Gruber

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 263–280, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.25

• activation statuses, and apoptotic or degenerative changes [74]. In addition, fluorescence microscopy has been widely used in studies on the biodistribution of nanoparticles [28][48][75][76][77][78]. For fluorescence microscopic detection, NP are usually labeled with fluorescent dyes, such as fluorescein

• surface functionalization and binding of other molecules of interest may remain completely similar to that of unlabeled particles [79][83][84]. Another disadvantage when using fluorescent dyes is their time-dependent photobleaching, which results in a more or less rapid fading of the fluorescent yield [85

• for the detection of mixed QD populations with a single excitatory wavelength [86]. Furthermore, the impact of toxic ions released by QD on biological matter has been minimized by embedding QD into silica nanoparticles [88] without influencing the optical properties [89]. Unlike fluorescent dyes that

Poly(styrene)/oligo(fluorene)-intercalated fluoromica hybrids: synthesis, characterization and self-assembly

• Giuseppe Leone,
• Francesco Galeotti,
• William Porzio,
• Guido Scavia,
• Luisa Barba,
• Gianmichele Arrighetti,
• Giovanni Ricci,
• Chiara Botta and
• Umberto Giovanella

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2450–2458, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.254

• ]. Among the inorganic nano-scaled materials, layered silicates have been widely used as hosts for functional π-conjugated molecules (dyes) [8][9][10], and polymers [11][12][13][14][15], owing to their adsorption properties, ion-exchange ability, high specific surface area, and a two-dimensional (2D

Synthesis and characterization of fluorescence-labelled silica core-shell and noble metal-decorated ceria nanoparticles

• Rudolf Herrmann,
• Markus Rennhak and
• Armin Reller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2413–2423, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.251

• titania NP and their interaction with human cell lines [1] and pointed out that the determination of the biological effects of zinc oxide NP is problematic since they are sensitive towards phosphate ions [2]. This work will not be included in this article. The fluorescence dyes and the labelling process

• As principal means of investigation by our physicochemical and medicinal partners, confocal microscopy and other fluorescence-based methods were envisaged. Consequently, a proper choice of the fluorescent label is crucial. We first experimented with commercial dyes Cy3 and Cy5 having an emission in a

• suitable frequency range, but they turned out to be not sufficiently photostable under the experimental condititons. We then switched to perylenediimide derivatives which are known to be chemically and photochemically quite inert [3][4]. We prepared the dyes MPD (asymmetric) and BPD (symmetric) shown in

Synthesis of radioactively labelled CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots for in vivo experiments

• Gordon M. Stachowski,
• Christoph Bauer,
• Christian Waurisch,
• Denise Bargheer,
• Peter Nielsen,
• Jörg Heeren,
• Stephen G. Hickey and
• Alexander Eychmüller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2383–2387, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.247

• alloyed structures [5][6][7][8]. Semiconductor nanocrystals are discussed in the literature as potential emitters for LEDs or as bio-labelling agents due to their complementary optical properties as well as other advantages in comparison to organic dyes. For example, they exhibit broad absorption

Interaction of dermatologically relevant nanoparticles with skin cells and skin

• Annika Vogt,
• Fiorenza Rancan,
• Sebastian Ahlberg,
• Berouz Nazemi,
• Chun Sik Choe,
• Maxim E. Darvin,
• Sabrina Hadam,
• Ulrike Blume-Peytavi,
• Kateryna Loza,
• Jörg Diendorf,
• Matthias Epple,
• Christina Graf,
• Eckart Rühl,
• Martina C. Meinke and
• Jürgen Lademann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2363–2373, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.245

• cell culture conditions are not always predictive for ex vivo or in vivo tissue studies. For example, in previous studies on skin interactions with biodegradable poly(lactic acid) (PLA) particles loaded with different fluorescent dyes, we found that although mono-dispersed and stable in aqueous

• solution, skin contact with the particles lead to destabilization with the release of loaded dyes [36][37]. The studies further illustrated that cells, especially immortalized cell lines compared to primary cells as well as cell types, e.g., epithelial cells versus dendritic cells, differ significantly in

• studies with silica particles required labeling of particles with fluorescent dyes or introduction of gold cores followed by sectioning of the tissue for further analysis, skin penetration of AgNP could be studied in intact tissue blocks by tracking of the Raman signal. The representative Raman and SERS

Inorganic Janus particles for biomedical applications

• Isabel Schick,
• Steffen Lorenz,
• Dominik Gehrig,
• Stefan Tenzer,
• Wiebke Storck,
• Karl Fischer,
• Dennis Strand,
• Frédéric Laquai and
• Wolfgang Tremel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2346–2362, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.244

• introducing amino-groups at the surface [108][109]. The resulting positively charged nanoparticles are known to be taken up more efficiently in in vitro cultures [110][111], whereby amine-functionalized silica-particles enable covalent conjugation of dyes, biomolecules, such as sugars, antibodies, and

Localized surface plasmon resonances in nanostructures to enhance nonlinear vibrational spectroscopies: towards an astonishing molecular sensitivity

• Dan Lis and
• Francesca Cecchet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2275–2292, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.237

• . showed in 2011 that SE-CARS could be used to obtain large scale images of tissues, for diagnostic purposes [82]. The authors demonstrated that, similarly to immunohistochemistry (IHC) that labels antibodies with dyes or enzymes to image the tissue with conventional light microscope, antibody-labeled

Rapid degradation of zinc oxide nanoparticles by phosphate ions

• Rudolf Herrmann,
• F. Javier García-García and
• Armin Reller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2007–2015, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.209

• for particles used in biomedical applications [26]. Similar perylene-derived dyes were applied as sensitizers for zinc oxide solar cells [27]. ZnO samples 1 were prepared by a wet method under acidic conditions [28]. In the absence of the fluorescence marker we obtained almost spherical particles of 5

PVP-coated, negatively charged silver nanoparticles: A multi-center study of their physicochemical characteristics, cell culture and in vivo experiments

• Sebastian Ahlberg,
• Alexandra Antonopulos,
• Jörg Diendorf,
• Ralf Dringen,
• Matthias Epple,
• Rebekka Flöck,
• Wolfgang Goedecke,
• Christina Graf,
• Nadine Haberl,
• Jens Helmlinger,
• Fabian Herzog,
• Frederike Heuer,
• Stephanie Hirn,
• Christian Johannes,
• Stefanie Kittler,
• Manfred Köller,
• Katrin Korn,
• Wolfgang G. Kreyling,
• Fritz Krombach,
• Jürgen Lademann,
• Kateryna Loza,
• Eva M. Luther,
• Marcelina Malissek,
• Martina C. Meinke,
• Daniel Nordmeyer,
• Anne Pailliart,
• Jörg Raabe,
• Fiorenza Rancan,
• Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser,
• Eckart Rühl,
• Carsten Schleh,
• Andreas Seibel,
• Christina Sengstock,
• Lennart Treuel,
• Annika Vogt,
• Katrin Weber and
• Reinhard Zellner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1944–1965, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.205

• intracellular organelles, e.g., the Golgi complex or the endoplasmic reticulum [89]. To analyze the intracellular location of agglomerated silver nanoparticles in more detail, the Golgi apparatus, the cell nucleus and the endo-lysosomes were marked by specific fluorescent dyes. Previously, the hMSC were

Imaging the intracellular degradation of biodegradable polymer nanoparticles

• Anne-Kathrin Barthel,
• Martin Dass,
• Melanie Dröge,
• Jens-Michael Cramer,
• Daniela Baumann,
• Markus Urban,
• Katharina Landfester,
• Volker Mailänder and
• Ingo Lieberwirth

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1905–1917, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.201

• may give deeper insight into the cell strategies for handling the load of external NPs. Proving the disappearance of something is challenging, especially for image-based techniques. One can do this, however, by using special markers such as self-quenched fluorescent dyes [14] or other non-degradable

Precise quantification of silica and ceria nanoparticle uptake revealed by 3D fluorescence microscopy

• Adriano A. Torrano and
• Christoph Bräuchle

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1616–1624, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.173

• intensity of a single nanoparticle, obtained through a calibration experiment, is compared to the intensity of each object and determines the number of nanoparticles forming this object. It is therefore assumed that the self-quenching of dyes in particle agglomerates is negligible. This approach was proved

Donor–acceptor graphene-based hybrid materials facilitating photo-induced electron-transfer reactions

• Anastasios Stergiou,
• Georgia Pagona and
• Nikos Tagmatarchis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1580–1589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.170

• transient absorption spectroscopy, verified that electron transfer occurs from graphene to ZnPc. Beyond the coupling of porphyrin and phthalocyanine dyes to graphene, other photo- and/or electro-active units have been also introduced. In this context, an extended tetrathiafulvalene (exTTF) was grafted to

Synthesis of hydrophobic photoluminescent carbon nanodots by using L-tyrosine and citric acid through a thermal oxidation route

• Venkatesh Gude

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1513–1522, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.164

• ], photocatalytic applications [28][29]. Very few reports about hydrophobic CNDs are known [30][31]. Hydrophobic fluorescent probes (e.g., Nile red) were found to be useful for labeling hydrophobic environments in bacteria [32], but the problem associated with organic dyes is photobleaching. CNDs are promising

In vitro interaction of colloidal nanoparticles with mammalian cells: What have we learned thus far?

• Moritz Nazarenus,
• Qian Zhang,
• Mahmoud G. Soliman,
• Pablo del Pino,
• Beatriz Pelaz,
• Susana Carregal-Romero,
• Joanna Rejman,
• Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser,
• Martin J. D. Clift,
• Reinhard Zellner,
• G. Ulrich Nienhaus,
• James B. Delehanty,
• Igor L. Medintz and
• Wolfgang J. Parak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1477–1490, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.161

• semiconductor quantum dot NPs (QDs) were unable to elicit a more negative biological effect when used for cellular labeling than a panel of dyes commonly used for the same intrinsic purposes [159]. Along with this, often transformed and immortalized cell lines are used in biological research, meaning that they

The cell-type specific uptake of polymer-coated or micelle-embedded QDs and SPIOs does not provoke an acute pro-inflammatory response in the liver

• Markus Heine,
• Alexander Bartelt,
• Oliver T. Bruns,
• Denise Bargheer,
• Artur Giemsa,
• Barbara Freund,
• Ludger Scheja,
• Christian Waurisch,
• Alexander Eychmüller,
• Rudolph Reimer,
• Horst Weller,
• Peter Nielsen and
• Joerg Heeren

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1432–1440, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.155

• : hepatocytes; inflammation; Kupffer cells; liver sinusoidal endothelial cells; nanoparticle toxicity; nanoparticle uptake; quantum dots; superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanocrystals; Introduction The superior optical properties of QDs compared to organic dyes render them promising candidates for the demands of

DFT study of binding and electron transfer from colorless aromatic pollutants to a TiO₂ nanocluster: Application to photocatalytic degradation under visible light irradiation

• Corneliu I. Oprea,
• Petre Panait and
• Mihai A. Gîrţu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1016–1030, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.115

• has to be modified in various ways [6]. Alternative approaches to the modification of the TiO2 photocatalyst are the self-sensitized degradation of dyes which absorb visible light [7][8] and the photocatalytic degradation of colorless organic compounds by formation of a charge-transfer-complex, CTC [9

• efficient photocatalytic degradation of pollutants under visible light irradiation has to meet similar requirements to the ones of the dyes in Grätzel cells. In particular, the anchoring mode of the pollutant to the TiO2 surface influences the electron transfer [17]. The most commonly used anchoring group

• ]. Theoretically, density functional theory (DFT) calculations showed [21][22][23] that the binding of the carboxy group to titania is bidentate bridging, with the monodentate anchoring being less stable [24][25][26][27]. The higher performance of the dyes with both carboxy and hydroxy anchoring groups [28] has

Functionalized nanostructures for enhanced photocatalytic performance under solar light

• Liejin Guo,
• Dengwei Jing,
• Maochang Liu,
• Yubin Chen,
• Shaohua Shen,
• Jinwen Shi and
• Kai Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 994–1004, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.113

• should be pointed out that TiO2 can only respond to UV light, even metal ion doping can hardly enhance its visible light activity. Sensitization with dyes or nanocrystals is one possible approach to extend the light absorption of TiO2. Sreethawong et al. found that eosin Y-sensitized mesoporous-assembled

Molecular biology approaches in bioadhesion research

• Marcelo Rodrigues,
• Birgit Lengerer,
• Thomas Ostermann and
• Peter Ladurner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 983–993, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.112

• probes to endogenous mRNA [39] (Figure 4). 3.2 In situ hybridization set-up Several ways to visualize the probes can be utilized – with fluorescent dyes, with alkaline phosphatase, or horseradish peroxidase reactions. We will present a widely used chromogenic visualization method, based on an alkaline

Optimizing the synthesis of CdS/ZnS core/shell semiconductor nanocrystals for bioimaging applications

• Li-wei Liu,
• Si-yi Hu,
• Ying Pan,
• Jia-qi Zhang,
• Yue-shu Feng and
• Xi-he Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 919–926, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.105

• organic dyes, QDs have narrow emission peaks that can be systematically tuned from visible to near-infrared by manipulating their size, composition, and shape [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. In addition, QDs exhibit a continuous absorption band behaviour that allows a single laser light source to excite

• multicolored QDs simultaneously. This is a major advantage compared with the simultaneous excitation of multiple organic dyes emitting at different wavelengths, which requires multiple light sources. All of these attractive features of QDs have made them extremely promising candidates for the new generation of