Low cost tips for tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy fabricated by two-step electrochemical etching of 125 µm diameter gold wires

• Antonino Foti,
• Francesco Barreca,
• Enza Fazio,
• Cristiano D’Andrea,
• Paolo Matteini,
• Onofrio Maria Maragò and
• Pietro Giuseppe Gucciardi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2718–2729, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.254

• bound) in gap-mode. TERS maps of sub-monolayer films of R6G on Au(111) are shown with optical resolution better than 5 nm. The procedure can in principle be applied to thinner wires to further reduce costs and production times, although issues related to the fragility of the tip and difficulties in the

Size-selected Fe₃O₄–Au hybrid nanoparticles for improved magnetism-based theranostics

• Maria V. Efremova,
• Yulia A. Nalench,
• Eirini Myrovali,
• Anastasiia S. Garanina,
• Ivan S. Grebennikov,
• Polina K. Gifer,
• Maxim A. Abakumov,
• Marina Spasova,
• Makis Angelakeris,
• Alexander G. Savchenko,
• Michael Farle,
• Natalia L. Klyachko,
• Alexander G. Majouga and
• Ulf Wiedwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2684–2699, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.251

• positive staining of 4T1 cells is found only on the periphery of the cell monolayer. However, ROS activation is observed at this point of time – as indicated by an increased number of H2DCFDA-positive cells in the culture (Figure S5C, Supporting Information File 1). Exposure to AMF for 30 min is sufficient

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

• 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

• been extensively examined to date. Recently, A. Toma et al. [21] published the first report on SEIRA for detection of an optical phonon mode (so-called Froehlich mode) from a monolayer of CdSe NCs deposited on Au nanoantenna arrays. The SEIRA enhancement induced by the nanoantennas was estimated to be

• -shaped nanoantennas, were used for further SEIRA investigations. These arrays with appropriate structural parameters were also used for depositing CdSe, CdS, and PbS NCs in the Langmuir–Blodgett experiments. As it is seen from representative SEM images in Figure 7, a homogeneous monolayer of CdSe NCs is

Characterization of the microscopic tribological properties of sandfish (Scincus scincus) scales by atomic force microscopy

• Weibin Wu,
• Christian Lutz,
• Simon Mersch,
• Richard Thelen,
• Christian Greiner,
• Guillaume Gomard and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2618–2627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.243

• . [13] sedated animals, put them on a tilted flat covered with a monolayer of granular particles, and determined the angle at which the animal started to slide in forward direction on its ventral scales. The static friction coefficient µst, determined in this more classical way, was higher for sandfish

Non-agglomerated silicon–organic nanoparticles and their nanocomplexes with oligonucleotides: synthesis and properties

• Asya S. Levina,
• Marina N. Repkova,
• Nadezhda V. Shikina,
• Zinfer R. Ismagilov,
• Svetlana A. Yashnik,
• Dmitrii V. Semenov,
• Yulia I. Savinovskaya,
• Natalia A. Mazurkova,
• Inna A. Pyshnaya and
• Valentina F. Zarytova

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2516–2525, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.234

• blue) and 488 nm (for fluorescein-labeled samples, green) were used. The results are shown in Figure 5. Cell viability assays The experiments were carried out similarly as described in [20]. In short: Two days after the formation of a continuous monolayer of MDCK cells at 37 °C and 5% CO2, the cells

ZnO-nanostructure-based electrochemical sensor: Effect of nanostructure morphology on the sensing of heavy metal ions

• Marina Krasovska,
• Vjaceslavs Gerbreders,
• Irena Mihailova,
• Andrejs Ogurcovs,
• Eriks Sledevskis,
• Andrejs Gerbreders and
• Pavels Sarajevs

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2421–2431, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.227

• in the substitution reaction and forms stronger bonds with the ZnO surface. The Freundlich (multilayered) adsorption model is the result of a very strong interaction [26]. By contrast, Cd–O bonds are much weaker than Pb–O bonds, so in the case of cadmium, the Langmuir (monolayer) adsorption model is

• effectiveness of sedimentation is directly related to the electronegativity of the adsorbate: substances with higher electronegativity form stronger bonds with the ZnO surface and exceed the monolayer range. This was supported by the fact that a significantly better adsorption of lead ions was observed compared

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

• Applied Materials, Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA CRANN@AMBER, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland 10.3762/bjnano.9.199 Abstract This paper details the application of phosphorus monolayer doping of silicon on insulator substrates. There have been no previous publications dedicated to the topic of

• and will be problematic when attempting to reach doping levels achieved by rival techniques. Keywords: CMOS; doping; monolayer; silicon; silicon on insulator (SOI); Introduction Aggressive device scaling in the sub-20 nm region has resulted in a number of techniques that were previously essential

• future device scaling that a means of damage-free, conformal doping is established, and this is where monolayer doping (MLD) appears to have potential to succeed. MLD was pioneered by Javey and co-workers [5] in 2008 and has subsequently been used to dope multiple substrate types such as silicon [5][6][7

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

• monolayer of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) functionalized with carboxylic groups (–COOH). Through a joint analysis of the photovoltaic properties at the nanoscale by photoconductive-AFM (PC-AFM) and surface photovoltage imaging, we investigated the physical mechanisms taking place locally during the

• composed of arrays of nanoscale columns, covalently sensitized with a P3HT-COOH monolayer to form hybrid bulk heterojunctions. The grafting of P3HT on the surface of TiO2, ensured by the COOH groups, was demonstrated to be beneficial for the photoconversion efficiency of the system [16][17][18]. The

Recent highlights in nanoscale and mesoscale friction

• Andrea Vanossi,
• Dirk Dietzel,
• Andre Schirmeisen,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Rémy Pawlak,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Marcin Kisiel,
• Shigeki Kawai and
• Nicola Manini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1995–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.190

• frictional sliding observed in the case of overlayer/substrate lattice mismatch. Nucleation dynamics characterizes the depinning mechanism of a stiff commensurate colloidal monolayer [167]. In contrast, if the interface is characterized by a lattice mismatch, the presence/absence of static friction depends

Self-assembled quasi-hexagonal arrays of gold nanoparticles with small gaps for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

• Emre Gürdal,
• Simon Dickreuter,
• Fatima Noureddine,
• Pascal Bieschke,
• Dieter P. Kern and
• Monika Fleischer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1977–1985, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.188

• /mL and stirred for 2 days. The micelles were loaded with chlorauric acid (HAuCl4, loading parameter (L = 0.5), Sigma-Aldrich) and stirred again for 2 days. Spin-coating was applied to cover the substrate with a monolayer of the gold-loaded micelles (30 s at 2000 rpm). Electroless deposition A quartz

• features. To measure the SERS signal, the gold nanoparticles were covered with a self-assembled monolayer of 4-MBA. Because the thiol-group of the 4-MBA molecules has a very high affinity for gold [27], and the samples were rinsed thoroughly with ethanol to remove any unbound molecules, we can assume that

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

• . For this purpose samples with low coverage (monolayer) of Hf NPs were prepared. The coverage with nanoparticles was defined by the deposition time. AFM and TEM images reveal the height and diameter of the NPs. Faceted Hf nanoparticles were formed with a mean size of (diameter × height) 16 nm × 15 nm

Improving the catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution of monolayered SnSe_2(1−x)S_2x by mechanical strain

• Sha Dong and
• Zhiguo Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1820–1827, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.173

• non-noble metals and earth-abundant elements is a promising pathway for achieving practical electrochemical water splitting. In this work, the electronic properties and catalytic activity of monolayer SnSe2(1−x)S2x (x = 0–1) under compressive and tensile strain were investigated using density

• functional theory (DFT) computations. The results showed SnSe2(1−x)S2x alloys with continuously changing bandgaps from 0.8 eV for SnSe2 to 1.59 eV for SnS2. The band structure of a SnSe2(1−x)S2x monolayer can be further tuned by applied compressive and tensile strain. Moreover, tensile strain provides a

• direct approach to improve the catalytic activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) on the basal plane of the SnSe2(1−x)S2x monolayer. SnSeS and SnSe0.5S1.5 monolayers showed the best catalytic activity for HER at a tensile strain of 10%. This work provides a design for improved catalytic

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

• (TiO2-400) calcined at a relatively low temperature (400 °C) had a large adsorption capacity in the range of monolayer adsorption (0.1 < P/P0 < 0.25), which indicated highly porous structures with a large BET surface area. However, the amount of monolayer adsorption of the TiO2 samples continuously

Toward the use of CVD-grown MoS₂ nanosheets as field-emission source

• Geetanjali Deokar,
• Nitul S. Rajput,
• Junjie Li,
• Francis Leonard Deepak,
• Wei Ou-Yang,
• Nicolas Reckinger,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Jean-Francois Colomer and
• Mustapha Jouiad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1686–1694, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.160

• practical applications. Thus, as compared with previously published horizontally aligned monolayer or the vertically aligned MoS2 NSs or nanoflowers, the as-produced NSs present a clear advantage in terms of low turn-on field and high current density. It has been demonstrated that film morphology of the

Free-radical gases on two-dimensional transition-metal disulfides (XS₂, X = Mo/W): robust half-metallicity for efficient nitrogen oxide sensors

• Chunmei Zhang,
• Yalong Jiao,
• Fengxian Ma,
• Sri Kasi Matta,
• Steven Bottle and
• Aijun Du

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1641–1646, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.156

• highly challenging work because it requires sensors with an ultra-high level of sensitivity. By using density functional theory, here we demonstrate that the adsorption of a paramagnetic unpaired free radical gas (NO) on a monolayer of XS2 (X = Mo, W) can trigger the transition from semiconductor to half

• ][16], phosphorene [9], siligraphene (SiC5) [10] and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) [11][17] possess a high specific surface area and high electrical conductivity making them the ideal candidates for gas sensors. In particular, investigations of XS2-based (X = Mo, W) monolayer nanodevices demonstrate that

• , only few possess all necessary properties and many of them are unstable. Therefore, to explore more experimentally feasible and stable half-metallic materials is highly desirable. In this paper, a density functional theory (DFT) study is carried out to show that monolayer XS2 (X = Mo, W) can

Nanoscale electrochemical response of lithium-ion cathodes: a combined study using C-AFM and SIMS

• Jonathan Op de Beeck,
• Nouha Labyedh,
• Alfonso Sepúlveda,
• Valentina Spampinato,
• Alexis Franquet,
• Thierry Conard,
• Philippe M. Vereecken,
• Wilfried Vandervorst and
• Umberto Celano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1623–1628, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.154

• . Static SIMS is known to be probing only the outermost monolayer with minimal disturbance ensuring the information we obtain is only the surface chemical composition [15]. In essence, the SIMS results provide the 2D distribution map of the Li concentration at the surface with a clear distinction between

Light extraction efficiency enhancement of flip-chip blue light-emitting diodes by anodic aluminum oxide

• Yi-Ru Huang,
• Yao-Ching Chiu,
• Kuan-Chieh Huang,
• Shao-Ying Ting,
• Po-Jui Chiang,
• Chih-Ming Lai,
• Chun-Ping Jen,
• Snow H. Tseng and
• Hsiang-Chen Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1602–1612, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.152

• with Ga-doped zinc oxide (GZO)/GaN as the base layer and then reducing the total reflectivity by changing the shape, thickness, and density of the microstructure through dry etching [12]. Li et al. increased the LEE of an InGaN-monolayer quantum-well LED by 1.8–1.9 times relative to that of a

The electrical conductivity of CNT/graphene composites: a new method for accelerating transmission function calculations

• Olga E. Glukhova and
• Dmitriy S. Shmygin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1254–1262, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.117

• using the example of a graphene monolayer. Figure la shows the considered system, that is, the unit cell connected to the electrodes. Since we calculated the conductance of this material (graphene), the same cells act as electrodes. Electrodes are translated to infinity along the Y-direction, and they

• Equations 1–3 with different values of N are shown in Figure 1b. For a small step of the decomposition dk = 0.1 1/Å (N = 15), the function has a step-like form. When the step of the decomposition is reduced to dk = 0.0015 1/Å (N = 984), the curve takes the correct well-known form for a graphene monolayer

• hexagons, but also defects in the form of pentagons, heptagons and octagons. In order to calculate the electrical conductance in the X- and Y-directions, as in the case of the graphene monolayer, a central supercell and supercell electrodes are separated (see Figure 5b). The conductance calculation scheme

Computational exploration of two-dimensional silicon diarsenide and germanium arsenide for photovoltaic applications

• Sri Kasi Matta,
• Chunmei Zhang,
• Yalong Jiao,
• Anthony O'Mullane and
• Aijun Du

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1247–1253, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.116

• –correlation functional [13]. A Monkhorst–Pack k-points grid [14] of 9 × 3 × 2 and 9 × 3 × 1 was used for sampling the first Brillouin zone for bulk and monolayer for geometry optimizations. Both bulk and monolayer systems are set for relaxing until residual force and energy converged to 0.005 eV/Å and 10−7eV

• , respectively. To study 2D monolayer systems under periodic boundary conditions, a vacuum layer of about 15 Å was introduced to minimize the spurious interaction between neighboring layers. The electronic band structure is predicted through hybrid density functional theory based on the Heyd–Scuseria–Ernzerhof

• bulk equivalent of the same material”, Ef: where, E2D and E3D are the energies of the monolayer and the bulk material, respectively. n2D and n3D are the number of atoms present in the unit cells considered for the calculations [18][19][20]. The optical properties are evaluated by determining the

Heterostuctures of 4-(chloromethyl)phenyltrichlorosilane and 5,10,15,20-tetra(4-pyridyl)-21H,23H-porphine prepared on Si(111) using particle lithography: Nanoscale characterization of the main steps of nanopatterning

• Phillip C. Chambers and
• Jayne C. Garno

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1211–1219, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.112

• rinsed from the sample. The uniform color contrast observed in the phase image (Figure 2d) indicates that the nanoholes do not contain OTS. The approximate surface coverage of the OTS film measured 97%. The average thickness of the OTS monolayer was measured to be 0.7 nm. The measurements indicate

• submonolayer surface coverage relative to the ideal height (2.6 nm) of a densely packed OTS monolayer [25][41]. The nanoholes within OTS that were generated with particle lithography will serve as sites for further reactions with CMPS and H2TPyP to produce multicomponent nanostructures. Methyl-terminated OTS

An implementation of spin–orbit coupling for band structure calculations with Gaussian basis sets: Two-dimensional topological crystals of Sb and Bi

• Sahar Pakdel,
• Mahdi Pourfath and
• J. J. Palacios

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1015–1023, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.94

• all relevant band structure variations induced by SOC. In this work, the non-relativistic or scalar-relativistic Kohn–Sham Hamiltonian is obtained from the CRYSTAL code and the SOC term is added a posteriori. As an example, we apply this method to the Bi(111) monolayer, a paradigmatic 2D topological

• , we have chosen to apply our implementation to Sb and Bi, which are prototypical topological materials where SOC plays a crucial role. Despite being elemental, they present a broad range of behaviors. While bulk Bi is a trivial semimetal, a Bi(111) monolayer is a 2D topological insulator (TI) [27]. Sb

• few-layers in the (111) direction, typically for more than ≈7 layers, behave as a 3D topological semimetal, while the Sb(111) monolayer is a trivial indirect-gap semiconductor. In order for our SOC implementation to be of practical use, it should capture these trivial/non-trivial topological

Electro-optical interfacial effects on a graphene/π-conjugated organic semiconductor hybrid system

• Karolline A. S. Araujo,
• Luiz A. Cury,
• Matheus J. S. Matos,
• Thales F. D. Fernandes,
• Luiz G. Cançado and
• Bernardo R. A. Neves

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 963–974, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.90

• probe microscopy, optical spectroscopy (photoluminescence and Raman) and ab initio calculations. The graphene/RA interaction induces the formation of a well-organized π-conjugated self-assembled monolayer (SAM) at the interface. Such structural organization leads to the high optical emission efficiency

• of the RA SAM, even at room temperature. Additionally, photo-assisted electrical force microscopy, photo-assisted scanning Kelvin probe microscopy and Raman spectroscopy indicate a RA-induced graphene doping and photo-charge generation. Finally, the optical excitation of the RA monolayer generates

• interfacial effects. Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and Raman scattering experiments, along with first-principles calculations, reveal the presence of a highly ordered RA self-assembled monolayer atop graphene and graphite. The electro-optical characterization of the hybrid system discloses interfacial

Scanning speed phenomenon in contact-resonance atomic force microscopy

• Christopher C. Glover,
• Jason P. Killgore and
• Ryan C. Tung

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 945–952, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.87

• , humidity, and loading conditions [17][26][28][29][30][31][32]. Researchers using molecular dynamic (MD) simulations have also found that “at the monolayer coverage, water forms a 2-D H-bonded network in an epitaxial relationship with the mica lattice” [17]. The first complete layer of water is thought to

Comparative study of antibacterial properties of polystyrene films with TiO_x and Cu nanoparticles fabricated using cluster beam technique

• Vladimir N. Popok,
• Cesarino M. Jeppesen,
• Peter Fojan,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Jan Hanuš and
• Ondřej Kylián

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 861–869, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.80

• of the NP embedding. For the antibacterial tests, the samples with higher surface cluster coverage (slightly more than one monolayer of particles) are used. A very similar tendency for immersion is found for Ti NPs on PS. Therefore, the AFM images are not presented. The AFM measurements also show