Self-assembled monolayers and titanium dioxide: From surface patterning to potential applications

• Yaron Paz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 845–861, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.94

• significantly improve the solubility and dispersibility of the nanocrystals in aprotic solvents, upon coating with thin films of oleic acid (CH3(CH2)7CH=CH(CH2)7COOH) [31]. The aggregation on undoped particles was explained by the oleic acid forming a bilayer, with the carboxylic groups located at the solvent

• nanoparticles the formed monolayer was denser than on undoped examples, thus preventing the interpenetration of hydrophobic chains that could have formed the bilayer structure. Another functional headgroup used for the formation of SAMs on titanium dioxide is isocyanate (CH3(CH2)nN=C=O), which forms a

Influence of water on the properties of an Au/Mpy/Pd metal/molecule/metal junction

• Jan Kučera and
• Axel Groß

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 384–393, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.44

• electronic structure of these Pd atoms is considerably modified which is reflected in a reduced local density of states at the Fermi energy. At higher coverages, water can be arranged in a hexagonal ice-like bilayer structure in analogy to water on bulk metal surfaces, but with a much stronger binding which

• eV [18]. Single H2O molecules on metal surfaces preferentially occupy top site positions creating a one-fold oxygen–metal bond, with O–H bonds oriented parallel to the surface [25]. Layers of water on (111) metal surfaces are traditionally assumed to be arranged in an ice-like hexagonal bilayer

• isolated water molecule, as well as of a water layer arranged in a hexagonal bilayer, at the preferential adsorption sites on the densely packed palladium monolayer of the Au/Mpy/Pd system. In addition, we concentrate on the structural and electronic modification of the Au/Mpy/Pd complex upon water

Microfluidic anodization of aluminum films for the fabrication of nanoporous lipid bilayer support structures

• Jaydeep Bhattacharya,
• Alexandre Kisner,
• Andreas Offenhäusser and
• Bernhard Wolfrum

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 104–109, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.12

• setup for performing biological experiments without the need to transfer the brittle nanoporous material. We demonstrate this technique by using the same microfluidic system for membrane fabrication and subsequent liposome fusion onto the nanoporous support structure. The resulting bilayer formation is

• monitored by impedance spectroscopy across the nanoporous alumina membrane in real-time. Our approach offers a simple and efficient methodology to investigate the activity of transmembrane proteins or ion diffusion across membrane bilayers. Keywords: anodization; lipid bilayer; microfluidics

• nanoporous membrane for lipid bilayer formation, the nanoporous alumina surface was first subjected to silanization. The silanization was carried out in the solution phase according to the method described by Steinle and coworkers [37][38] with slight modifications. Briefly, a 10% (v/v) solution of (3