Electrostatic force microscopy for the accurate characterization of interphases in nanocomposites

• Diana El Khoury,
• Richard Arinero,
• Jean-Charles Laurentie,
• Mikhaël Bechelany,
• Michel Ramonda and
• Jérôme Castellon

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2999–3012, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.279

• deduced by comparison of experimental data and numerical simulations, as well as the interface state of silicone dioxide layers. Keywords: atomic force microscopy; building-block materials; dielectric permittivity; electrostatic force microscopy; finite element simulation; interphases; nanocomposites

• ; Introduction Composite nanomaterials (often referred to as “nanodielectrics” by the dielectrics community) can be synthesized by including dielectric nanoparticles in a polymeric matrix and are often used as insulating material [1][2][3]. Although the mechanical and thermal behavior of the base insulating

• polymer can be enhanced by microcomposites, its electrical performance is usually degraded [4][5]. On the other hand, the incorporation of nanofillers (1–10 wt %) into these polymers improves the dielectric properties of the resulting material, while meeting the thermal, mechanical and cost requirements

Colloidal chemistry with patchy silica nanoparticles

• Pierre-Etienne Rouet,
• Cyril Chomette,
• Laurent Adumeau,
• Etienne Duguet and
• Serge Ravaine

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2989–2998, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.278

• samples was measured once again and the zeta potential values were measured using the Malvern Zetasizer 3000 HS setup (Malvern Instruments). Each measurement was performed for 30 s, the dielectric constant of solvent (water) was set to 80.4 and the Smoluchowsky factor f(κa) was 1.5. Synthesis of the CMs

Investigation of CVD graphene as-grown on Cu foil using simultaneous scanning tunneling/atomic force microscopy

• Majid Fazeli Jadidi,
• Umut Kamber,
• Oğuzhan Gürlü and
• H. Özgür Özer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2953–2959, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.274

• temperature, the Ar flow was stopped and the H2 flow was reduced while CH4 was let in to the quartz tube as the carbon source. As-grown samples, as well as graphene crsytals transferred on to dielectric substrates were investigated by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Raman spectra

In situ characterization of nanoscale contaminations adsorbed in air using atomic force microscopy

• Jesús S. Lacasa,
• Lisa Almonte and
• Jaime Colchero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2925–2935, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.271

• function of tip–sample voltage and tip–sample distance, we are able to determine the contact potential, the Hamaker constant and the effective thickness of the dielectric layer within the tip–sample system. All these properties depend strongly on the contamination within the tip–sample system. We propose

• and that on each metallic surface a thin dielectric film may be adsorbed. In addition, we will assume that the (second derivative of) tip–sample capacitance (see Equation 3) can be approximated by the expression C″(d) = πε0R/(d + h/ε)2, where R is the effective tip radius, d is the tip–sample distance

• , h is the total thickness of the dielectric films on tip and sample, ε0 is the dielectric permittivity of vacuum and ε is the relative dielectric constant [43][44][45][46]. For a purely metallic system in air or vacuum were no dielectric layer is present (h = 0), the expression simplifies to C″(d

Time-resolved universal temperature measurements using NaYF₄:Er³⁺,Yb³⁺ upconverting nanoparticles in an electrospray jet

• Kristina Shrestha,
• Arwa A. Alaulamie,
• Ali Rafiei Miandashti and
• Hugh H. Richardson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2916–2924, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.270

• slope value of −1182 ± 8.0 K and the intercept is 3.002 ± 0.021. The selection of the peak range is important for an accurate calculation of temperature. Changes in peak shape with external factors such as intensity, excitation time, and surrounding dielectric conditions [36] will corrupt the

Controlling surface morphology and sensitivity of granular and porous silver films for surface-enhanced Raman scattering, SERS

• Sherif Okeil and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2813–2831, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.263

• the SERS activity can deteriorate due to surface oxidation of the silver surface [88]. For increasing the long-term stability of SERS active silver films we have studied a thin layer of dielectric Al2O3 as protective coating [89]. A 1 nm thick Al2O3 film was deposited on top of the nanoporous silver

Contactless photomagnetoelectric investigations of 2D semiconductors

• Marian Nowak,
• Marcin Jesionek,
• Barbara Solecka,
• Piotr Szperlich,
• Piotr Duka and
• Anna Starczewska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2741–2749, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.256

• ] (ε0ε/we)Vg, where ε0 and ε are the permittivity of free space and the used dielectric, respectively; e is the electron charge; and w is the thickness of the dielectric. The authors of [35] provided the theoretical description of the current compact model of graphene field-effect transistors. In our

Silencing the second harmonic generation from plasmonic nanodimers: A comprehensive discussion

• Jérémy Butet,
• Gabriel D. Bernasconi and
• Olivier J. F. Martin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2674–2683, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.250

• refractive index n = 1.33, corresponding to water. The dielectric constants of gold are taken from experimental data at both the fundamental and second harmonic wavelengths [25]. For the SHG computations, the linear surface currents are used for the evaluation of the fundamental electric fields just below

• imaginary part of the dielectric constant of gold is constant and does not modify the losses at the SH wavelength. Figure 3 shows the maximal SHG induced by the resonant excitation of the bonding dipolar mode at the fundamental wavelength for gaps ranging from 5 nm to 400 nm. For the largest gaps, the

Two-dimensional semiconductors pave the way towards dopant-based quantum computing

• José Carlos Abadillo-Uriel,
• Belita Koiller and
• María José Calderón

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2668–2673, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.249

• meff and the dielectric screening ε of the host materials. In atomic units, the binding energy in 2D is larger than in 3D for particular values meff and ε. Defining the effective Rydberg constant as the binding energy of the electron bound to a single dopant in 3D is while in 2D it is . Similarly

• materials may vary and eventually be tuned by an electric field, for instance, in the case of buckled silicene and germanene [31]. There is much less information on the dielectric screening of 2D materials, which also depends on the substrate and environment. It has been calculated only for a few cases (for

• instance, MoS2[32] or h-BN [33]) and the experimentally reported values lie in a wide range [32]. Typically, the dielectric constant of monolayer materials is expected to be smaller than their 3D counterparts, as their screening capabilities are reduced at low dimensionality [29][33]. All this variability

Nanoantenna structures for the detection of phonons in nanocrystals

• Alexander G. Milekhin,
• Sergei A. Kuznetsov,
• Ilya A. Milekhin,
• Larisa L. Sveshnikova,
• Tatyana A. Duda,
• Ekaterina E. Rodyakina,
• Alexander V. Latyshev,
• Volodymyr M. Dzhagan and
• Dietrich R. T. Zahn

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2646–2656, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.246

• the incident electromagnetic waves once their wavelength coincides with the doubled antenna length [36]. This coupling also depends on the dielectric function of the surrounding medium that causes an increase in the LSPR energy when a thin SiO2 layer (with a thickness of 0.5–100 nm) is introduced

• NC monolayers, their intensity increase entails a high frequency shift of the LSPR minima, which is more pronounced for H-shaped nanoantennas (Figure 8c and 8d). This shift occurs due to the change in dielectric function of the medium surrounding the nanoantennas. At a relatively thick CdSe NC

Impact of the anodization time on the photocatalytic activity of TiO₂ nanotubes

• Jesús A. Díaz-Real,
• Geyla C. Dubed-Bandomo,
• Juan Galindo-de-la-Rosa,
• Luis G. Arriaga,
• Janet Ledesma-García and
• Nicolas Alonso-Vante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2628–2643, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.244

• dielectric constant of the material. From the CV curves, an increase in the capacitive current was observed towards lower potential values, which is typical for a transition to the accumulation region of n-type semiconductors. The calculated values for Eg and ND are summarized in Table 3, and compared to the

Enhancement of X-ray emission from nanocolloidal gold suspensions under double-pulse excitation

• Wei-Hung Hsu,
• Frances Camille P. Masim,
• Armandas Balčytis,
• Hsin-Hui Huang,
• Tetsu Yonezawa,
• Aleksandr A. Kuchmizhak,
• Saulius Juodkazis and
• Koji Hatanaka

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2609–2617, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.242

• [26], respectively. Theory: Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ)-Material A strong generation of X-rays is related to a large amount of absorbed energy and a high temperature [3][4]. In terms of relative permittivity (dielectric constant), εr, a transparent medium (water) with colloidal gold nanoparticles

• represents an effective medium with an overall positive real part of the permittivity. Upon excitation, the material is approaching dielectric breakdown and a state of εr ≈ 0 (epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) state; ). Under the ENZ condition, the strongest absorption takes place [36][37]: Here, εi is the intrinsic

• be calculated from the consideration that all absorbed energy density is converted to thermal energy of electrons. It can be calculated from the ablation threshold expression of a dielectric [37]: where ls = c/(κω) is the skin depth related to the imaginary part of the refractive index , c is the

Au–Si plasmonic platforms: synthesis, structure and FDTD simulations

• Anna Gapska,
• Marcin Łapiński,
• Paweł Syty,
• Wojciech Sadowski,
• Józef E. Sienkiewicz and
• Barbara Kościelska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2599–2608, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.241

• polarized light waves, then the results were averaged to obtain the non-polarized wave for which all results are presented. While solving the Maxwell equations through FDTD calculations, the complex dielectric function plays a crucial role as it describes dispersion in both metal and dielectric layers in

• the simulated systems. For metals in an oscillating external field, this function depends on the oscillation frequency, and its proper modeling is a very important step in the simulation process. In our case, the dielectric functions of gold [26] and silicon [27] were fitted to the Lorentz model [28

Directional light beams by design from electrically driven elliptical slit antennas

• Shuiyan Cao,
• Eric Le Moal,
• Quanbo Jiang,
• Aurélien Drezet,
• Serge Huant,
• Jean-Paul Hugonin,
• Gérald Dujardin and
• Elizabeth Boer-Duchemin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2361–2371, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.221

• , bull’s-eye, nanoparticle dimer, or wire antennas), coupled in the near field (or incorporating in their design) an electrically driven nanosource of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs, light waves coupled to electron density oscillations at a metal–dielectric interface). In particular, the electrical SPP

Metal–dielectric hybrid nanoantennas for efficient frequency conversion at the anapole mode

• Valerio F. Gili,
• Lavinia Ghirardini,
• Davide Rocco,
• Giuseppe Marino,
• Ivan Favero,
• Iännis Roland,
• Giovanni Pellegrini,
• Lamberto Duò,
• Marco Finazzi,
• Luca Carletti,
• Andrea Locatelli,
• Aristide Lemaître,
• Dragomir Neshev,
• Costantino De Angelis,
• Giuseppe Leo and
• Michele Celebrano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2306–2314, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.215

• Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS-UMR9001, Route de Nozay, 91460 Marcoussis, France Nonlinear Physics Centre, Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, 2601 ACT Canberra, Australia 10.3762/bjnano.9.215 Abstract Background: Dielectric nanoantennas have

• antenna based on an AlGaAs nanopillar surrounded by a gold ring, which merges in a single platform the strong field confinement typically produced by plasmonic antennas with the high nonlinearity and low loss characteristics of dielectric nanoantennas. This platform allows enhancing the coupling of light

• dielectric materials the electric field penetrates deeply into the volume [16], the exploitation of large bulk nonlinearities also enables enhanced nonlinear light–matter interactions at the nanoscale. Third-harmonic generation (THG) was the first nonlinear effect observed in nanoscale semiconductors with

Intrinsic ultrasmall nanoscale silicon turns n-/p-type with SiO₂/Si₃N₄-coating

• Dirk König,
• Daniel Hiller,
• Noël Wilck,
• Birger Berghoff,
• Merlin Müller,
• Sangeeta Thakur,
• Giovanni Di Santo,
• Luca Petaccia,
• Joachim Mayer,
• Sean Smith and
• Joachim Knoch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2255–2264, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.210

• , Si modulation doping of adjacent dielectric layers based on nitrides [11] and oxides [12], in analogy to modulation doping of III–V semiconductors, were shown to be an alternative to conventional impurity doping. It would be ideal to achieve electron- (n-) or hole- (p-) type conductivity in usn-Si

• ) approach. Following an explanation of the theoretical and experimental methods used, we turn to results for Si-NCs obtained from h-DFT. Here, we focus on the electronic structure of Si-NCs as a function of the embedding dielectric and its thickness of up to 3 monolayers (MLs). The latter dependence

• requires the use of NCs to keep the h-DFT computation effort practicable; NWires with more than 1 ML dielectric embedding are beyond the feasible computation effort at the level of accuracy we use. As an ultimate theoretical test, we present h-DFT results of two Si-NCs, one embedded in SiO2 and the other

Filling nanopipettes with apertures smaller than 50 nm: dynamic microdistillation

• Evelyne Salançon and
• Bernard Tinland

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2181–2187, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.204

• . Results and Discussion Quartz capillaries, being of pure silica, have certain intrinsic properties (low dielectric constant, low loss factor, high volume resistivity, strength and chemical purity) that make them appropriate for the reproducible electrical measurements described below. Notably, they

Interaction-induced zero-energy pinning and quantum dot formation in Majorana nanowires

• Samuel D. Escribano,
• Alfredo Levy Yeyati and
• Elsa Prada

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2171–2180, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.203

• -dimensional model of the dielectric surroundings, here we show that, under certain circumstances, these interactions lead to a suppression of the Majorana oscillations predicted by simpler theoretical models, and to the formation of low-energy quantum-dot states that interact with the Majorana modes. Both

• (SC) layer on one of its faces and to two bulk normal leads at both ends, separated by thin insulating barriers. In Figure 1a we indicate the characteristic dielectric constants of each region, which are relevant for the calculation of the induced potential through Poisson’s equation (discussed below

• or μ proportional to the Majorana charge QM and the strength of the interaction. This was already shown in [33] but for a simplified dielectric profile where the presence of the superconducting shell had been ignored. We here include it and find that the size of the pinned regions decreases but the

Light–Matter interactions on the nanoscale

• Mohsen Rahmani and
• Chennupati Jagadish

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2125–2127, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.201

• in metals), the knowledge is still valuable for developing new strategies for light–matter interactions on the nanoscale. High refractive index dielectric [11] and semiconductor [12] nanostructures have been recently exploited as an alternative to plasmonics [13]. Dielectrics and semiconductors

• in the engineering of light behaviour at the nanoscale. Among various applications of dielectric nanostructures, metasurfaces, composed of a single or a few stacked layers of subwavelength nanostructures/particles, are growing in popularity [14]. This is because metasurfaces can offer a diverse range

• developments in this area. This Thematic Series can guide readers in understanding the physics of light matter–interaction with various kinds of nanostructures, including metallic (plasmonic), dielectric and semiconductor, 2D, as well as hybrid nanostructures [18]. Meanwhile, readers can become more familiar

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

• on current density and often increases light absorption. This increased light absorption comes from optical resonances in nanomaterials, which have been studied extensively in both metallic (plasmonic) and dielectric material systems [9][10][11][12][13]. One hallmark of resonant absorption is the

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

• antennas are devices operating at frequencies from visible light to infrared [8]. They were primarily developed to enhance light–matter near-field interactions [9] via the excitation of surface plasmons for metal-based devices [10] or Mie resonances for dielectric antennas [11][12]. Interestingly, optical

• versatile and low-cost integrated light sources, and optical tunneling gap antennas may provide an alternative technology to solid-state light emitting diodes or quantum dots. Coupling of such a junction have been recently demonstrated in plasmonic strips [27][59] and we extend the concept to dielectric

• show also that light emerges from the distal end of the TiO2 stripes indicating that a portion of the power emitted by the electron-fed antennas is coupled to the dielectric structure and is transmitted away from the radiating feedgap. The optical tunneling gap antenna may therefore be used as an

A differential Hall effect measurement method with sub-nanometre resolution for active dopant concentration profiling in ultrathin doped Si_1−xGe_x and Si layers

• Richard Daubriac,
• Emmanuel Scheid,
• Hiba Rizk,
• Richard Monflier,
• Sylvain Joblot,
• Rémi Beneyton,
• Pablo Acosta Alba,
• Sébastien Kerdilès and
• Filadelfo Cristiano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1926–1939, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.184

• this work will have a minimum thickness of about 6 nm, so that the quantum-confinement effect can be neglected. An additional low-dimension effect is the dielectric confinement, which has been investigated in silicon nanowires surrounded by a dielectric material (such as its native oxide) [37][38]. For

• ] indicated a perfect correlation between measured activation and simulated activation, suggesting that dielectric confinement affects more significantly 3D than 2D structures at low dimensions. Finally, when quantifying the active dopant and mobility depth profiles with DHE, the surface-depletion effect

Nonlinear effect of carrier drift on the performance of an n-type ZnO nanowire nanogenerator by coupling piezoelectric effect and semiconduction

• Yuxing Liang,
• Shuaiqi Fan,
• Xuedong Chen and
• Yuantai Hu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1917–1925, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.183

• dielectric constants and eiL being the electromechanical coupling coefficients. K, L = 1, 2,…, 6; i, j = 1, 2, 3; The cross section of a bent ZnO nanowire is assumed to be circular in our analysis, which was also assumed by, for example, Gao and Wang [26][27], Henneghien et al. [34], and Maslov and co

• cross section, and r and θ stand for the radial and the tangential coordinate, respectively, as shown in Figure 1. ε0 is the dielectric coefficient of the vacuum. Results and Discussion We calculate carrier concentration fluctuation, piezoelectric potential, electric fields, boundary charges by using

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

• cross section in neutron absorption [32]. Hafnium alloys are used in medical applications because they are biocompatible and exhibit high corrosion resistance as well as in aerospace technology because it can increase the mechanical strength of materials [33]. Furthermore, because of its high dielectric

• constant HfO2 and its compounds are used in the field of microelectronics for the manufacturing of integrated circuits and more particularly as gate dielectrics of metal-oxide semiconductor transistors having replaced the traditional thermally grown SiO2 dielectric [34]. More recently, HfO2 was also

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

• describes schematically the investigated DG-HJ-JL TFET structure. The cornerstone of the proposed design is the assumption of a uniformly and highly doped heterochannel (Si1−xGex/Si/Ge), which can be indicated by n+/n+/n+. In addition, the proposed design is suggested with a HfO2 gate dielectric in order to