Organic and inorganic–organic thin film structures by molecular layer deposition: A review

• Pia Sundberg and
• Maarit Karppinen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1104–1136, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.123

• acid [57] and TMA+oxiran-2-ylmethanol (glycidol, GLY) [38]. The characterization techniques used to investigate the thin films deposited by using MLD do not vary much from those techniques used for inorganic thin films grown by ALD. An in situ quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is often used to give

Towards precise defect control in layered oxide structures by using oxide molecular beam epitaxy

• Federico Baiutti,
• Georg Christiani and
• Gennady Logvenov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 596–602, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.70

• source can be opened for service and replacement of a source element without venting the growth chamber within a short period of time, even during the film growth. The differential pumping module is also used to pump the electron gun of the RHEED system and the load locked quartz crystal monitor (QCM

• ) head. The QCM, which is mounted on a linear bellows assembly and is separated from the growth chamber by a gate valve, is used to calibrate the absolute deposition rates for each source before starting the process, while the RHEED system allows for the in-situ monitoring of the growth in real time. The

3D-nanoarchitectured Pd/Ni catalysts prepared by atomic layer deposition for the electrooxidation of formic acid

• Loïc Assaud,
• Evans Monyoncho,
• Kristina Pitzschel,
• Anis Allagui,
• Matthieu Petit,
• Margrit Hanbücken,
• Elena A. Baranova and
• Lionel Santinacci

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 162–172, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.16

• onto the Ni films (Figure 1g). Both NiO and Pd deposition processes have been monitored by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The morphology, the chemical composition and the crystalline structures have been investigated by scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM) and atomic force

• deposition of NiO is carried out from nickelocene (NiCp2) and O3 precursors and the reduction of this oxide film to metallic Ni is obtained by a reductive annealing process under H2 atmosphere. The relative mass, m, gain and loss have been monitored during the process by QCM and are plotted in Figure 2a. A

• sequence. The QCM measurements indicate that the exposure and purging duration are optimized for both NiCp2 and O3 pulses. The mass variations are indeed reaching a plateau at the end of the exposure and purging stages. After the short NiCp2 pulse (green period on the far left of Figure 2b), the mass

Mapping mechanical properties of organic thin films by force-modulation microscopy in aqueous media

• Jianming Zhang,
• Zehra Parlak,
• Carleen M. Bowers,
• Terrence Oas and
• Stefan Zauscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 464–474, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.53

• , including surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [58], quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) [59][60][61] and ellipsometry [62]. These methods, however, do not resolve differences in the grafting density and packing of the molecules with high spatial resolution (micrometer or less). Here we show that FMM in solution

Sensing surface PEGylation with microcantilevers

• Natalija Backmann,
• Natascha Kappeler,
• Thomas Braun,
• François Huber,
• Hans-Peter Lang,
• Christoph Gerber and
• Roderick Y. H. Lim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 3–13, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.2

• (QCM-D) [11] and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [12] also allow for the characterization of adsorption-induced and structural changes in interfacial polymer layers. The high sensitivity of microcantilever sensors has proven to be a powerful platform for detecting molecular interactions in a label-free

• chains into their swelling state. Discussion We have studied the behavior of 20 kDa mPEG–SH “grafted to” Au surfaces using a microcantilever array-based sensor. Consistent with XPS [8], ellipsometry [8][34], QCM [35] and AFM [36] polymer “grafting to” studies, we find that the adsorption profile of mPEG