The effect of heat treatment on the morphology and mobility of Au nanoparticles

• Sven Oras,
• Sergei Vlassov,
• Simon Vigonski,
• Boris Polyakov,
• Mikk Antsov,
• Vahur Zadin,
• Rünno Lõhmus and
• Karine Mougin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 61–67, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.6

• the geometry from faceted to more rounded shapes were observed with increasing annealing temperature. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the NPs become rounded due to the minimization of the surface area and the transition to lower energy surface types {111} and {100}. The NPs were

• manipulated on a silica substrate with an atomic force microscope (AFM) in tapping mode. Initially, the NPs were immovable by AFM energy dissipation. However, annealed NPs became movable, and less energy was required to displace the NPs annealed at higher temperature. However, after annealing at 800 °C, the

• particles became immovable again. This effect was attributed to the diffusion of Au into the Si substrate and to the growth of the SiO2 layer. Keywords: annealing; atomic force microscopy (AFM); Au nanoparticles; manipulation; melting; nanotribology; Introduction Gold is one of the most prominent

Recent progress in perovskite solar cells: the perovskite layer

• Xianfeng Dai,
• Ke Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 51–60, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.5

• -quality perovskite films based on these techniques, researchers control the perovskite morphology by optimizing the solvents for processing [26], varying the annealing temperature [27], adjusting the processing additives [28], sophisticated engineering of the solvent [12][14] and annealing of the solvent

Synthesis of amorphous and graphitized porous nitrogen-doped carbon spheres as oxygen reduction reaction catalysts

• Maximilian Wassner,
• Markus Eckardt,
• Andreas Reyer,
• Thomas Diemant,
• Michael S. Elsaesser,
• R. Jürgen Behm and
• Nicola Hüsing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1–15, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.1

• . Annealing graphene oxide (GO) in an ammonia atmosphere at 550 °C led to pyridinic N-doped graphene, while at a temperature of 850 °C graphitic nitrogen coexisted with pyridinic nitrogen, and for higher temperatures the amount of graphitic N increased. Annealing GO at 850 °C in the presence of polyaniline or

• -carbonized carbon spheres and stirred for 24 h, followed by refluxing for 5 h at 100 °C and subsequent filtration and drying. Catalytic graphitization was carried out by annealing at different temperatures, between 550 and 1000 °C with steps of 150 °C, in argon atmosphere for 4 h (heating rate 5 °C·min−1

Antimony deposition onto Au(111) and insertion of Mg

• Lingxing Zan,
• Da Xing,
• Abdelaziz Ali Abd-El-Latif and
• Helmut Baltruschat

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2541–2552, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.245

• paper, we will study the kinetics of the insertion process in more detail [19]. Experimental Chemicals, materials and electrolyte The Au(111) single crystal was prepared by cooling down after flame annealing in pure argon (Air Liquid, 99.999%,) atmosphere as described elsewhere [20]. A typical cyclic

Synthesis and acetone sensing properties of ZnFe₂O₄/rGO gas sensors

• Kaidi Wu,
• Yifan Luo,
• Ying Li and
• Chao Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2516–2526, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.242

• of ZnFe2O4 and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with different rGO content were prepared via a simple solvothermal method followed by a high-temperature annealing process in an inert atmosphere. The X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed that the introduction of rGO had no effect on the spinel structure of

Semitransparent Sb₂S₃ thin film solar cells by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis for use in solar windows

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Lothar Weinhardt,
• Monika Blum,
• Clemens Heske,
• Wanli Yang,
• Ilona Oja Acik and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2396–2409, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.230

• imposing limitations on the substrate size [43][44]. A recent paper showed a PCE of 4.6% in solar cells based on Sb2(S,Se)3 grown onto planar CdS by USP, followed by Se vapor annealing at ≈400 °C. However, pristine Sb2S3 solar cells consistently yielded a PCE below 0.1% [45]. This clearly illustrates the

• demonstrated that by adapting a two-step sequence, whereby amorphous Sb2S3 layers are first deposited by USP and then crystallized by thermal annealing, compact Sb2S3 thin films with uniform thickness can be fabricated [46]. Similarly, a two-step procedure to grow compact Sb2S3 thin films has become common

• pattern of the vacuum-annealed sample matched orthorhombic Sb2S3 (ICDD PDF 01-075-4012). The Raman spectrum of the as-deposited Sb2S3 layer contains two broad bands (Figure 1e), which are characteristic of amorphous Sb2S3 [28][46]. After vacuum annealing, characteristic narrower bands of Sb2S3 are

Deterministic placement of ultra-bright near-infrared color centers in arrays of silicon carbide micropillars

• Stefania Castelletto,
• Abdul Salam Al Atem,
• Faraz Ahmed Inam,
• Hans Jürgen von Bardeleben,
• Sophie Hameau,
• Ahmed Fahad Almutairi,
• Gérard Guillot,
• Shin-ichiro Sato,
• Alberto Boretti and
• Jean Marie Bluet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2383–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.229

• defects. The maximum H+ concentration was simulated to be at 2 µm under the sample surface. Annealing at different temperatures under neutral N2 atmosphere was used to promote the presence of different defects (VSi without annealing, 750 °C for 30 min for VSiVC, 900 °C for 30 min for NCVSi). The following

• -temperature PL shows an enhancement by a factor of up to 5.5 for VSi in sample 1 and by a factor of 2.3 for VSiVC in sample 3. Our results also confirm the conversion of VSi to VSiVC during annealing [55] from sample 2 to sample 3. The enhancement of VSi in sample 2 appears to be lower than that in sample 1

• after the fabrication of the pillars. For excitation at 940 nm the PL spectra of sample 3 shows the activation of the NCVSi emission at low temperature [35] after annealing at a higher temperature (Figure 3). Only sample 3 at 940 nm excitation is shown here, as it is most exemplary for the formation of

Polyvinylpyrrolidone as additive for perovskite solar cells with water and isopropanol as solvents

• Chen Du,
• Shuo Wang,
• Xu Miao,
• Wenhai Sun,
• Yu Zhu,
• Chengyan Wang and
• Ruixin Ma

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2374–2382, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.228

• for 10 min. Then the film was submerged in the MAX solution (the concentration of the MAX solution was 40 mg/mL MAI and 10 mg/mL MACl) for 500 s to prepare the CH3NH3PbI3 layer, and the films were dried by spinning at 3000 rpm for 10 s and annealing at 120 °C for 10 min. Subsequently, the hole

• irradiated by UV/ozone. The following most critical point in the production of the perovskite layer was to spin the lead nitrate onto the SnO2 ETL. Then, the layer was introduced into a bath of MAX solution for 500 s, and finally dried by spinning and annealing at 120 °C for a period of 10 min. The SEM

Design and facile synthesis of defect-rich C-MoS₂/rGO nanosheets for enhanced lithium–sulfur battery performance

• Chengxiang Tian,
• Juwei Wu,
• Zheng Ma,
• Bo Li,
• Pengcheng Li,
• Xiaotao Zu and
• Xia Xiang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2251–2260, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.217

• improved through the combination of amorphous carbon and rGO, which could also limit the dissolution of polysulfides. After annealing at different temperatures, it is found that the C-MoS2/rGO-6-S composite annealed at 600 °C yields a noticeably enhanced performance of lithium–sulfur batteries, with a high

• specific capacity of 572 mAh·g−1 at 0.2C after 550 cycles, and 551 mAh·g−1 even at 2C, much better than that of MoS2-S nanosheets (249 mAh·g−1 and 149 mAh·g−1) and C-MoS2/rGO-S composites (334 mAh·g−1 and 382 mAh·g−1). Our intended electrode design protocol and annealing process may pave the way for the

• construction of other high-performance metal disulfide electrodes for electrochemical energy storage. Keywords: annealing; double modification; high-performance electrodes; lithium–sulfur battery; molybdenum disulfide (MoS2); reduced graphene oxide (rGO); Introduction Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have

Nontoxic pyrite iron sulfide nanocrystals as second electron acceptor in PTB7:PC₇₁BM-based organic photovoltaic cells

• Olivia Amargós-Reyes,
• José-Luis Maldonado,
• Omar Martínez-Alvarez,
• María-Elena Nicho,
• José Santos-Cruz,
• Juan Nicasio-Collazo,
• Irving Caballero-Quintana and
• Concepción Arenas-Arrocena

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2238–2250, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.216

• atmospheric conditions [30][32][33][34]. The performance of the OPVs depends on the misalignment of the energy levels of each component, as well as on the organic compounds and the architecture used, on the type of solvents, the deposition technique of the active layer, the annealing conditions and the

• were spin-coated onto ITO/PEDOT:PSS at 1900 rpm for 60 s at atmospheric conditions, and then the films were annealed at 80 °C for 15 min (active layer thickness ≈100 nm). A PFN layer (≈5–10 nm) was spin-coated at 6000 rpm on top of the active layer and exposed to thermal annealing for 15 min at 80 °C

Facile synthesis of carbon nanotube-supported NiO//Fe₂O₃ for all-solid-state supercapacitors

• Shengming Zhang,
• Xuhui Wang,
• Yan Li,
• Xuemei Mu,
• Yaxiong Zhang,
• Jingwei Du,
• Guo Liu,
• Xiaohui Hua,
• Yingzhuo Sheng,
• Erqing Xie and
• Zhenxing Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1923–1932, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.188

• both XRD pattern and Raman spectra indicate that Fe2O3 is not well crystallized since it was formed at 70 °C in the drying oven without further annealing. The XPS spectrum in Figure S5a (Supporting Information File 1) shows the existence of Fe, O, and C elements in CC-CNT@Fe2O3. The Fe 2p spectrum

Fabrication and characterization of Si_1−xGe_x nanocrystals in as-grown and annealed structures: a comparative study

• Muhammad Taha Sultan,
• Adrian Valentin Maraloiu,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Jón Tómas Gudmundsson,
• Andrei Manolescu,
• Valentin Serban Teodorescu,
• Magdalena Lidia Ciurea and
• Halldór Gudfinnur Svavarsson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1873–1882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.182

• impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS). The as-grown structures subsequently underwent rapid thermal annealing (550–900 °C for 1 min) in N2 ambient atmosphere. The structures were investigated using X-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy together with spectral photocurrent

• annealing results in the periodically arranged columnar self-assembly of SiGe core–shell nanocrystals. An increase in photocurrent intensity by more than an order of magnitude was achieved by annealing. Furthermore, a detailed discussion is provided on strain development within the structures, the

• obtain NCs embedded in an oxide matrix is by thermal annealing of multilayer structures. Several oxide matrices have been studied already [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], of which SiO2 is the most extensively studied as it remains amorphous up to high temperatures and due to its compatibility with Si-based

Growth dynamics and light scattering of gold nanoparticles in situ synthesized at high concentration in thin polymer films

• Corentin Guyot,
• Philippe Vandestrick,
• Ingrid Marenne,
• Olivier Deparis and
• Michel Voué

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1768–1777, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.172

• inorganic film by, e.g., thermal annealing. Results: Simple laser reflection experiments showed that this growth process induced light scattering at the film/air interface. We report on this phenomenon, considering the growth dynamics of gold nanoparticles in a polymer film. The scattering of light was

• studied by measuring the bi-directional reflection distribution function. In parallel with the observation of enhanced scattering, imaging ellipsometry in dynamics mode showed that local values of the ellipsometric angles Ψ and Δ were strongly modified by the annealing process. Conclusion: A diffraction

• pattern corresponding to local modifications of the optical properties of the film gradually appeared, which turned out to be the signature of the growth of the Au nanoparticles. Moreover, the monitoring of the statistical distribution of the ellipsometric angles during annealing helped evidencing two

Synthesis of nickel/gallium nanoalloys using a dual-source approach in 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazole ionic liquids

• Ilka Simon,
• Julius Hornung,
• Juri Barthel,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Maik Finze,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1754–1767, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.171

• reduce the Ga3+ precursor, working as a nucleation center for the Ga atoms and prevent uncontrolled coagulation of the liquid metal. Through annealing, the single-phase products can be obtained [27][42]. The all-hydrocarbon precursor GaCp* (Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl), with the Ga atom in the

• , Figure S2 and Figure S3). Annealing of nanoparticle samples is known to improve the crystallinity of the nanoparticles [47][48]. The decomposition of Ni(COD)2 and GaCp* in [BMIm][NTf2] was repeated under the same conditions, but with a longer decomposition time of 30 min, in order to induce annealing in

Precise local control of liquid crystal pretilt on polymer layers by focused ion beam nanopatterning

• Maxim V. Gorkunov,
• Irina V. Kasyanova,
• Vladimir V. Artemov,
• Alena V. Mamonova and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1691–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.164

• display-quality glass substrates covered with ca. 150 nm thin transparent ITO electrodes. Polyimide (PI) is deposited onto the substrates by a conventional routine combining a precursor spin-coating and annealing at 190 °C for 1 h, which produces a mechanically robust PI layer of 10–20 nm thickness. Next

Kelvin probe force microscopy work function characterization of transition metal oxide crystals under ongoing reduction and oxidation

• Dominik Wrana,
• Karol Cieślik,
• Wojciech Belza,
• Christian Rodenbücher,
• Krzysztof Szot and
• Franciszek Krok

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1596–1607, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.155

• band of SrTiO3(100) [31]. Consequently, a decrease of the WF is expected, as it was previously reported for 900 °C thermal annealing under UHV, where the WF of SrTiO3(100) yielded 3.478(64) eV [30]. Hence, here a high conductivity of the reduced SrTiO3(100) is measured and a work function of 3.12(18

• ambient air exposure. Additionally, the impact of low temperature annealing (230 °C) in UHV is presented. After the venting of the vacuum chamber, the TiO nanowires still had a much higher work function than the SrTiO3(100) surface; however, the absolute values for both materials increased. It is widely

• known that water molecules present in the ambient air form a dipole layer, which can give rise to an effective surface potential [49]. To reduce the impact of weakly interacting adsorbates, in the next step, the sample underwent in situ UHV annealing, which implicated a WF decrease of both TiO and

Materials nanoarchitectonics at two-dimensional liquid interfaces

• Katsuhiko Ariga,
• Michio Matsumoto,
• Taizo Mori and
• Lok Kumar Shrestha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1559–1587, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.153

• vapour annealing [201]. Complicated morphology shifts such as swelling, coalescing of aggregates, bicontinuous pattern formation, one-dimensional droplet formation, and the periodic evolution of the droplets were observed. Mori et al. reported the formation of two-dimensional arrays of disk-shaped nano

High-temperature resistive gas sensors based on ZnO/SiC nanocomposites

• Vadim B. Platonov,
• Marina N. Rumyantseva,
• Alexander S. Frolov,
• Alexey D. Yapryntsev and
• Alexander M. Gaskov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1537–1547, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.151

• the components in a single homogeneous paste with subsequent thermal annealing. The composition and microstructure of the materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

• Experimental part. The characteristics of the synthesized materials are summarized in Table 1. Figure 2 shows the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs of SiC (Figure 2a,c) and ZnO (Figure 2b,d) nanofibers in a polymer matrix (Figure 2a,b) and after annealing (Figure 2c,d). The polymeric fibers

• pore diameter of 30 nm (Figure 2f). The polymeric fibers containing zinc acetate (Figure 2b) are cylindrical wires about 500 nm in diameter. The ZnO nanofibers obtained after annealing (Figure 2d) consist of polycrystalline wires with an average diameter of 150 nm formed by nanocrystals about 20–30 nm

Rapid thermal annealing for high-quality ITO thin films deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering

• Petronela Prepelita,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Doina Craciun,
• Florin Garoi,
• Catalin Negrila,
• Beatrice Gabriela Sbarcea and
• Valentin Craciun

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1511–1522, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.149

• , P.O. Box MG-7, Magurele 077125, Ilfov, Romania ICPE-CA, Splaiul Unirii 313, Sector 3, 74204, Bucharest, Romania Dentix MILLENNIUM SRL, Sabareni-Ilfov, Romania 10.3762/bjnano.10.149 Abstract In this work, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) was applied to indium tin oxide (ITO) films in ambient atmosphere

• treatment in an open atmosphere. Such films could be used to manufacture transparent contact electrodes for solar cells. Keywords: conductive transparent electrodes; indium tin oxide (ITO) films; optical properties; radio-frequency magnetron sputtering (rfMS); rapid thermal annealing (RTA); Introduction

• desired structure. In this paper, the influence of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on the structure and optical properties of ITO films, obtained by rfMS, are reported. We conducted studies to optimize the deposition parameters in order to obtain ITO thin films with excellent properties. The main

Growth of lithium hydride thin films from solutions: Towards solution atomic layer deposition of lithiated films

• Ivan Kundrata,
• Karol Fröhlich,
• Lubomír Vančo,
• Matej Mičušík and
• Julien Bachmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1443–1451, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.142

• , GIXRD was performed immediately after deposition. The GIXRD pattern of an as-deposited sample from the BuLi + H2O process reveals clear peaks of LiH as shown in Figure 4. Upon annealing at 600 °C peaks of Li2O appear as expected based on the reaction of LiH with oxygen from air. It cannot be ascertained

Selective gas detection using Mn₃O₄/WO₃ composites as a sensing layer

• Yongjiao Sun,
• Zhichao Yu,
• Wenda Wang,
• Pengwei Li,
• Gang Li,
• Wendong Zhang,
• Lin Chen,
• Serge Zhuivkov and
• Jie Hu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1423–1433, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.140

• gas sensing performance. Actually, the precursors before calcination are nanowire-like (Supporting Information File 1, Figure S1), but they present nanoparticles or nanorods after calcination treatment. The process could be explained by the re-crystallization of WO3 when annealing in air atmosphere

• solution was poured into an 80 mL Teflon-lined stainless steel autoclave and maintained at 200 °C inside an oven. The bluish precipitate was obtained through washing, centrifugation and drying at 80 °C. Finally, after annealing at 500 °C in air for 2 h, the as-prepared blue precursor was converted to faint

Gas sensing properties of individual SnO₂ nanowires and SnO₂ sol–gel nanocomposites

• Alexey V. Shaposhnik,
• Dmitry A. Shaposhnik,
• Sergey Yu. Turishchev,
• Olga A. Chuvenkova,
• Stanislav V. Ryabtsev,
• Alexey A. Vasiliev,
• Xavier Vilanova,
• Francisco Hernandez-Ramirez and
• Joan R. Morante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1380–1390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.136

• formed material. Sol–gel processes comprise the synthesis of nanopowders, consisting of spherical nanoparticles, the preparation of pastes from these powders, and finally, deposition and annealing. The development of the sol–gel synthesis of small particle semiconductor materials is no longer a

• an “e-nose” device in one chip. Scheme of nanowire synthesis (a), SEM image of SnO2 nanowires after synthesis (b), SEM image of a single SnO2 nanowire (c). TEM image of blank tin dioxide nanopowder after annealing. Nanowire with electrical contacts. Experimental diffractograms of SnO2 nanowire (blue

Alloyed Pt₃M (M = Co, Ni) nanoparticles supported on S- and N-doped carbon nanotubes for the oxygen reduction reaction

• Stéphane Louisia,
• Yohann R. J. Thomas,
• Pierre Lecante,
• Marie Heitzmann,
• M. Rosa Axet,
• Pierre-André Jacques and
• Philippe Serp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1251–1269, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.125

• , 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France 10.3762/bjnano.10.125 Abstract Sulfur- (S-CNT) and nitrogen-doped (N-CNT) carbon nanotubes have been produced by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (c-CVD) and were subject to an annealing treatment. These CNTs were used as supports for small (≈2 nm) Pt3M (M = Co or Ni

• treatment can be used to improve the carbon corrosion resistance of the CNT. In fact, annealing at high temperature (above 1000 °C) is used to remove structural defects from the CNT in order to obtained more stable [36] and more conductive [37] structures. In the case of the N-CNTs, the thermal annealing

• was observed with annealing of the N-CNTs. This could explain why the NP distribution is better for Pt3Co/N-CNT compared to Pt3Co/N-CNTHT. Non-annealed CNTs seem to have better interaction with the Co precursor and the as-obtained catalysts show a better NP distribution. Nevertheless, the mean size of

Molecular attachment to a microscope tip: inelastic tunneling, Kondo screening, and thermopower

• Rouzhaji Tuerhong,
• Mauro Boero and
• Jean-Pierre Bucher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1243–1250, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.124

• tunneling microscope (Modified Createc LT-STM) equipped with a vector magnetic field of 1 T. As described in [21], the Au(111) single crystal was cleaned by repeated cycles of Ne+ ion bombardment followed by thermal annealing at 800 K. The MnPc molecules were evaporated from an Al2O3 crucible heated by

Imaging the surface potential at the steps on the rutile TiO₂(110) surface by Kelvin probe force microscopy

• Masato Miyazaki,
• Huan Fei Wen,
• Quanzhen Zhang,
• Yuuki Adachi,
• Jan Brndiar,
• Ivan Štich,
• Yan Jun Li and
• Yasuhiro Sugawara

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1228–1236, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.122

• (1 keV, 6.7 × 10−7 mbar, 5 min) and annealing (600 K, less than 2.7 × 10−10 mbar, 20 min) to remove the native oxide layer and other contaminants. A clean rutile TiO2(110) crystal (provided by Furuuchi Chemical Corporation) was prepared by dozens of cycles of Ar+ sputtering (1 keV, 1.3 × 10−6 mbar

• , 10 min) and annealing (993 K, less than 2.7 × 10−10 mbar, 30 min). After the surface preparation, the color of the surface became the dark-blue, which implies that TiO2 is in a highly reduced state [2]. After cooling to room temperature, the sample was exposed to O2 (300 K, less than 2.7 × 10−9 mbar