Growth model and structure evolution of Ag layers deposited on Ge films

• Arkadiusz Ciesielski,
• Lukasz Skowronski,
• Ewa Górecka,
• Jakub Kierdaszuk and
• Tomasz Szoplik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 66–76, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.9

• , with the exception of the sample annealed at 300 °C. Detailed information about this comparison can be found in the experimental section. The grain size of the 35 nm thick Ag layer on silica is as large as 18 nm which is half of its thickness. This is because the adhesion of silver to glasses is

Dry adhesives from carbon nanofibers grown in an open ethanol flame

• Christian Lutz,
• Julia Syurik,
• C. N. Shyam Kumar,
• Christian Kübel,
• Michael Bruns and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2719–2728, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.271

• fabricated arrays of carbon nanofibers with different degrees of orientation. Inspired by the dry adhesive system of geckos we investigated the adhesive properties of such carbon nanofiber arrays with ordered and random orientation. AFM-based force spectroscopy revealed that adhesion force and energy rise

• linear with preload force. Carbon nanofibers oriented by a magnetic field show a 68% higher adhesion (0.66 N/cm2) than the randomly oriented fibers. Endurance tests revealed that the carbon nanofiber arrays withstand 50.000 attachment/detachment cycles without observable wear. Keywords: adhesion; atomic

• demonstrated possible alignment during growth with an external electric [6] or magnetic field [9]. Surprisingly, these alternative growth methods for 1D-CNs did not receive much attention so far. One among many promising applications of carbon nanotubes are dense arrays that feature interesting adhesion

Exploring wear at the nanoscale with circular mode atomic force microscopy

• Olivier Noel,
• Aleksandar Vencl and
• Pierre-Emmanuel Mazeran

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2662–2668, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.266

• [8][9]. In particular, different wear mechanisms such as abrasion, adhesion, surface fatigue, and tribochemical reactions [10] are known to depend on the tribological systems and the operating conditions. For example, the straightforward Archard’s law predicts that the wear volume is proportional to

• and Figure 6 was obtained by doing wear measurements at different locations on the sample. Scanning electronic microscopy images of the probes after wear showed that no significant wear of the AFM tip occurred after the set of experiments. Such facts were also confirmed by the adhesion force

Patterning of supported gold monolayers via chemical lift-off lithography

• Liane S. Slaughter,
• Kevin M. Cheung,
• Sami Kaappa,
• Huan H. Cao,
• Qing Yang,
• Thomas D. Young,
• Andrew C. Serino,
• Sami Malola,
• Jana M. Olson,
• Stephan Link,
• Hannu Häkkinen,
• Anne M. Andrews and
• Paul S. Weiss

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2648–2661, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.265

• height maps in Figure 3 to the presence of Au–alkanethiolate compounds in all regions of the patterned PDMS. In addition to topographic height measurements, we used PF-AFM to determine the adhesion force (i.e., the force needed to pull an AFM tip off a surface) to investigate chemical contrast on

• patterned PDMS [38]. The patterns of circles seen in the AFM adhesion maps in Figure 3C,E are consistent with differential molecular compositions in the lifted-off vs non-lifted-off regions and the chemically selective removal of molecules terminating in hydroxyl groups and not methyl groups during the

• . After degassing again, the PDMS stamps were cured in an oven at 60 °C for 12 h. The PDMS stamps were separated from the silicon masters carefully and cut into desired sizes. Patterning Au-on-silicon masters Silicon wafers with 100 nm Au and 5 nm titanium adhesion layers (Platypus, Madison, WI, USA) were

Enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting performance using morphology-controlled BiVO₄ with W doping

• Xin Zhao and
• Zhong Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2640–2647, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.264

• , the pore size decreases. The film prepared from the water-based solution with the smallest amount of EG (0.5-EG) exhibits cracks in the film (Figure S2, Supporting Information File 1) and has poor adhesion to the substrate. The sol–gel method allows reagents to be mixed at the atomic/molecular level

• nanoporous structure and a better performance (around 1.5 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V vs RHE). This corresponds to an increase of ca. 50%. The exception is sample 0.5-EG. As mentioned before, the sample 0.5-EG has poor adhesion and many cracks leading to a poor connection between the sample and the conductive FTO

Nanoprofilometry study of focal conic domain structures in a liquid crystalline free surface

• Anna N. Bagdinova,
• Evgeny I. Demikhov,
• Nataliya G. Borisenko and
• Sergei M. Tolokonnikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2544–2551, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.254

• substrate adhesion and preferred orientation of the SmA director parallel to the solid boundary and stable perpendicular director orientation to the free surface. This difference leads to the observation of “conic holes” on the boundary. The FCD structure is a stable director field configuration and defines

Refractive index sensing and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy using silver–gold layered bimetallic plasmonic crystals

• Somi Kang,
• Sean E. Lehman,
• Matthew V. Schulmerich,
• An-Phong Le,
• Tae-woo Lee,
• Stephen K. Gray,
• Rohit Bhargava and
• Ralph G. Nuzzo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2492–2503, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.249

• frequencies. A ≈5 nm titanium dioxide adhesion layer was deposited using atomic layer deposition (Cambridge nanotech) on the embossed SOG nanostructure followed by deposition of a ≈50 nm metallic film (Au, Ag or both) via one of the various methods. Sputter deposition in a 5 mTorr argon atmosphere (AJA

Increasing the stability of DNA nanostructure templates by atomic layer deposition of Al₂O₃ and its application in imprinting lithography

• Hyojeong Kim,
• Kristin Arbutina,
• Anqin Xu and
• Haitao Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2363–2375, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.236

• template relies on using water to lower the adhesion between the film and the template. The key advantage of our method is that any polymer with hydrophobicity and/or low surface energy can be patterned with the DNA nanostructure master template. Furthermore, because the method uses spin-coating instead of

• wiper to increase the adhesion between the polymer film and the backing stamp. After a minute, the PLLA/PDMS film was peeled off and the surface of the PLLA film was gently dried with N2. UV/Ozone treatment A DNA nanotube master template with an Al2O3 film was placed in a PSD Pro 4 Digital UV Ozone

Surfactant-induced enhancement of droplet adhesion in superhydrophobic soybean (Glycine max L.) leaves

• Oliver Hagedorn,
• Ingo Fleute-Schlachter,
• Hans Georg Mainx,
• Viktoria Zeisler-Diehl and
• Kerstin Koch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2345–2356, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.234

• Ecophysiology, IZMB, University of Bonn, Kirschallee 1, 53115 Bonn, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.8.234 Abstract This study performed with soybean (Glycine max L.), one of the most important crops for human and animal nutrition, demonstrates that changes in the leaf surface structure can increase the adhesion of

• hairs on the leaves. Agnique® SBO10 and the nonionic surfactant XP ED 75 increased the droplet adhesion and caused an increase of the TA from 20.9° to 85° and 90°, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy showed that surfactants with a hydrophilic–lipophilic balance value below 10 caused a size

• reduction of the epicuticular wax structures and a change from Cassie–Baxter wetting to an intermediate wetting regime with an increase of droplet adhesion. Keywords: droplet adhesion; epicuticular wax; Glycine max L; superhydrophobic; surfactants; Introduction The cuticle, as the outermost layer of

Tailoring the nanoscale morphology of HKUST-1 thin films via codeposition and seeded growth

• Landon J. Brower,
• Lauren K. Gentry,
• Amanda L. Napier and
• Mary E. Anderson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2307–2314, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.230

• attained from Pharmco-Aaper (Shelbyville, KY, USA). All chemicals were used as received, unless otherwise noted. Gold substrates were obtained from Platypus Technologies (New Orleans, LA) in the form of silicon wafers with a 5 nm titanium adhesion layer and 100 nm of gold. Methods Substrate Preparation

Molecular dynamics simulations of nanoindentation and scratch in Cu grain boundaries

• Shih-Wei Liang,
• Ren-Zheng Qiu and
• Te-Hua Fang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2283–2295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.228

• and adhesion when a probe touches the substrate) between Ni (probe) and Au (thin film substrate) under nanoindentation conditions using MD simulations. Moreover, Mulliah et al. [18] analyzed the friction coefficient, the dislocation, and related parameters of the nanostructure under nanoscratch

Material property analytical relations for the case of an AFM probe tapping a viscoelastic surface containing multiple characteristic times

• Enrique A. López-Guerra and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2230–2244, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.223

• Equation 29 we already included t″, which is the instant when the force becomes zero (in case of no adhesion) or when (in the case when vdW adhesion is considered). The above conditions are now used to find t″. Due to the complexity of the equation, we calculate t″ numerically for the specific cases

• the portion due to adhesion. The adhesion force is constant during contact, and translates in our analytical equation into a simple offset. Although the adhesion force in Figure 3b does not emerge as a sudden step, but rather builds up gradually according to the vdW attractive interaction, the sudden

• ); the second one is proportional to the loss modulus G″(ω); the third term is related to the transients (associated with the poles of the transfer function); the fourth term relates to the relaxation modulus (G(t)); and the fifth term is related to the adhesion component of the vdW interaction (surface

Synthesis and characterization of noble metal–titania core–shell nanostructures with tunable shell thickness

• Bartosz Bartosewicz,
• Marta Michalska-Domańska,
• Malwina Liszewska,
• Dariusz Zasada and
• Bartłomiej J. Jankiewicz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2083–2093, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.208

• poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) [49], mercaptoundecanoic acid [38][39], 1-ethenylpyrrolidin-2-one (PVP) [33][41], or hydroxypropyl cellulose [45][46][47]. In addition, in some studies, an adhesion layer was formed on the metal NP surface in order to better control the TiO2 shell growth [48]. The

A comparative study of the nanoscale and macroscale tribological attributes of alumina and stainless steel surfaces immersed in aqueous suspensions of positively or negatively charged nanodiamonds

• Colin K. Curtis,
• Antonin Marek,
• Alex I. Smirnov and
• Jacqueline Krim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2045–2059, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.205

• the Section ‘Macroscale friction measurements’. In order to characterize adhesion of NDs to surfaces quantitatively, the QCM frequencies and resistances were compared for crystals exposed to air before and after the exposure to the ND suspensions (followed by a rinse in pure water). The results

Bi-layer sandwich film for antibacterial catheters

• Gerhard Franz,
• Florian Schamberger,
• Hamideh Heidari Zare,
• Sara Felicitas Bröskamp and
• Dieter Jocham

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1982–2001, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.199

• slurry of a silver salt [17][18][29]. The main issue is the low adhesion of these films. Therefore, the deposition of metallic silver has come to the fore. Because the substrate (organic polymer) is electrically insulating, the most common technique, electrolysis, is not applicable. Only an electroless

• ratio of the sandwich layers: After having determined the thickness of the cap layer, the thickness of the depot layer has to be fixed. This thickness is a trade-off between durability and adhesion of the sandwich system. It is evident that the adhesion of the silver layer is significantly improved if

• this layer does not consist of a continuous film on top of the substrate (polysilicone or polyurethane), but if small grains or stripes are encased by the organic polymer. This polymer is deposited directly on the substrate, and the adhesion between an organic substrate and the organic polymer is

Imidazolium-based ionic liquids used as additives in the nanolubrication of silicon surfaces

• Patrícia M. Amorim,
• Ana M. Ferraria,
• Rogério Colaço,
• Luís C. Branco and
• Benilde Saramago

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1961–1971, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.197

• adhesion and friction problems, the so-called stiction. ILs stand up as promising lubricants for this type of systems, all the more so since ILs are conductive liquids, leading to the minimization of the contact resistance between sliding surfaces, which is required for various electrical applications

• removed layer. Figure 6c: The adsorbed layer of PEG + [EMIM][EtSO4] is similar in morphology to the previous ones. However, in this case, the adsorbed layer is only partially removed in the periphery of the sliding tracks, indicating that the adhesion of PEG to the Si surface is enhanced by the presence

Fabrication of carbon nanospheres by the pyrolysis of polyacrylonitrile–poly(methyl methacrylate) core–shell composite nanoparticles

• Dafu Wei,
• Youwei Zhang and
• Jinping Fu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1897–1908, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.190

• shells, and the surface of the obtained PAN–PMMA nanoparticles became smooth. The thick PMMA shell can inhibit the adhesion between carbon nanospheres caused by cyclization reactions during heat treatment. The carbon nanospheres with a diameter of 35–65 nm and a high BET specific surface area of 612.8 m2

• adhesion between the carbon nanoparticles. As a result, an agglomerated carbon bulk instead of discrete carbon nanoparticles was obtained [33][34]. To solve this problem, Wu et al. [33] coated a protective layer of inorganic salt, titanium phosphate (TP), on the surfaces of the PAN nanoparticles. The

• adhesion was inhibited, and a few discrete carbon nanoparticles were obtained. However, the carbonized product still contained many agglomerates of carbon nanoparticles with partial merged edges. The possible reason is that the coated TP layer was too thin to completely cover the surface of the PAN

Evaluation of preparation methods for suspended nano-objects on substrates for dimensional measurements by atomic force microscopy

• Petra Fiala,
• Daniel Göhler,
• Benno Wessely,
• Michael Stintz,
• Giovanni Mattia Lazzerini and
• Andrew Yacoot

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1774–1785, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.179

• properties (e.g., surface potential of material and substrate, tendency of nano-objects to agglomerate, adhesion force, size and shape). Therefore several preparation methods (membrane filtration, drying, rinsing, dip coating, electrostatic precipitation, thermal precipitation) on silicon (Si) and with

Nanotribological behavior of deep cryogenically treated martensitic stainless steel

• Germán Prieto,
• Konstantinos D. Bakoglidis,
• Walter R. Tuckart and
• Esteban Broitman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1760–1768, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.177

• total wear volume is the result of the combined adhesion, ploughing effect and cutting effects during the sliding process. The final profile of the scar reveals the probable presence of a subsuperficial carbide (Figure 9a), which did not wear as much as the metallic matrix due to its higher hardness. In

Air–water interface of submerged superhydrophobic surfaces imaged by atomic force microscopy

• Markus Moosmann,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Wilhelm Barthlott and
• Matthias Mail

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1671–1679, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.167

• AFM tip is pulled down by the air–water interface. Hence the measured force is negative (point 3). Supposing the interface behaves Hookean, there should not be any change in the slope of the curve at point 2. After the maximum adhesion is reached, the pinning ends abruptly and the tip is detached from

Uptake and intracellular accumulation of diamond nanoparticles – a metabolic and cytotoxic study

• Antonín Brož,
• Lucie Bačáková,
• Pavla Štenclová,
• Alexander Kromka and
• Štěpán Potocký

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1649–1657, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.165

• viability and the cell number to decrease by 80–85%. The oxidation of the NDs hindered the decrease, but on day 7, a further decrease was observed. While the O-terminated NDs showed mechanical obstruction of cells by agglomerates preventing cell adhesion, migration and division, the H-terminated detonation

• reactive oxygen species. Alternatively, it could have been caused just by mechanical obstruction of the cell adhesion and division by ND agglomerates, as confirmed by live-cell imaging. A similar effect was also observed in human osteoblast-like MG 63 cells cultured in a medium with multiwalled carbon

• loose serum protein/ND aggregates or in cell debris. The well-spread osteoblasts are homogeneously and confluently distributed. Good cell adhesion and division confirms the viability of the cells with photoluminescent NDs (AR-40). Conclusion A comparison of cell viability with various types of NDs (HPHT

Surface functionalization of 3D-printed plastics via initiated chemical vapor deposition

• Christine Cheng and
• Malancha Gupta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1629–1636, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.162

• . Hong et al. demonstrated that simply dipping polycaprolactone/poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) 3D scaffolds in mussel adhesive proteins promoted cellular adhesion, proliferation and differentiation, showing that a facile surface modification improved the viability of using 3D-printed scaffolds for tissue

Parylene C as a versatile dielectric material for organic field-effect transistors

• Tomasz Marszalek,
• Maciej Gazicki-Lipman and
• Jacek Ulanski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1532–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.155

• adhesion of this polymer to different substrates. According to the literature Parylene C exhibits a satisfactory adherence to gold, platinum and silicon nitride [61], which is, however, in contradiction to older reports [62][63]. Its adherence to polyimide, on the other hand, is found to be very low [61

• ]. It appears that adhesion forces of Parylene C not only depend on the type of substrate, but they can also be easily modified by surface processing, such as oxygen plasma treatment or thermal annealing [64]. Which procedure is to be applied strongly depends on the material used and on the further

• application of the parylene layer. It should also be pointed out, that when Parylene C is applied as a flexible substrate, its limited adhesion to the temporary rigid support (used in the fabrication process as sacrificial material) constitutes a major advantage of this polymer. The fact that Parylene C is

Light-induced magnetoresistance in solution-processed planar hybrid devices measured under ambient conditions

• Sreetama Banerjee,
• Daniel Bülz,
• Danny Reuter,
• Karla Hiller,
• Dietrich R. T. Zahn and
• Georgeta Salvan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1502–1507, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.150

• Au with a 10 nm ITO adhesion layer. It should be noted that the gate electrode was kept at ground voltage for the magnetoresistance measurements and the devices were used as two-terminal devices for making the results comparable with the HED-TIE devices. For the HED-TIE devices, submicrometre

• ]. 30 nm Au was deposited as the electrode layer with a 10 nm Cr as the adhesion layer (please refer to Supporting Information File 1 for further details of HED-TIE structures). TIPS-pentacene powder with a purity of 99.9% was purchased from Ossila. The solution was prepared in a mixture of toluene

Micro- and nano-surface structures based on vapor-deposited polymers

• Hsien-Yeh Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1366–1374, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.138

• –glycine–aspartic acid (cRGD) adhesion peptide and epidermal growth factor (EGF) in patterned areas via μCP [51]. Another similar copolymer system, which contained methyl propiolate and maleimide moieties, was also synthesized via CVD copolymerization. The concurrently immobilized μCP-patterned PEG and Cys

• restrictions in selecting substrate materials and geometries [69]. By using corona discharge treatment with gradually increasing power, the density of PEG was controlled with gradients to guide protein adsorption and platelet adhesion [70]. By also controlling polyatomic ion deposition to linearly increase the