Size limits of magnetic-domain engineering in continuous in-plane exchange-bias prototype films

• Alexander Gaul,
• Daniel Emmrich,
• Timo Ueltzhöffer,
• Henning Huckfeldt,
• Hatice Doğanay,
• Johanna Hackl,
• Muhammad Imtiaz Khan,
• Daniel M. Gottlob,
• Gregor Hartmann,
• André Beyer,
• Dennis Holzinger,
• Slavomír Nemšák,
• Claus M. Schneider,
• Armin Gölzhäuser,
• Günter Reiss and
• Arno Ehresmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2968–2979, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.276

• ][20][21], laser annealing [22][23][24], thermally assisted scanning probe lithography [25], or a combination of spatially broad laser- or ion-beams and shadow masks [26][27][28][29][30]. Especially in magnonic [14] and sensor applications [4] in-plane magnetic domain patterns play a key role and are

• assisted scanning probe lithography [25] or 250 nm wide dots fabricated by direct interferometric laser annealing [34]. Local annealing, however, results in three-dimensional temperature gradients within the magnetic film causing thermal diffusion and material intermixing over several hundreds of

Site-controlled formation of single Si nanocrystals in a buried SiO₂ matrix using ion beam mixing

• Xiaomo Xu,
• Thomas Prüfer,
• Daniel Wolf,
• Hans-Jürgen Engelmann,
• Lothar Bischoff,
• René Hübner,
• Karl-Heinz Heinig,
• Wolfhard Möller,
• Stefan Facsko,
• Johannes von Borany and
• Gregor Hlawacek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2883–2892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.267

• of NCs can form near the Si/SiO2 interface after a post-annealing process [18]. Si NC layer formation via ion beam mixing, which is studied both theoretically and experimentally [19], has capacitated the manufacturing of Si NC-based non-volatile memory devices [20]. A possible route to fabricate a Si

• is supported by computer simulations of the ion beam mixing and phase separation process. Second, a systematic study of Si+ NC formation is reported, to define optimized irradiation and annealing parameters. Third, these parameters are adapted to the FIB approach using the HIM. For this scenario

• the simulated annealing. The simulations show that after ion beam mixing with 100 Si+ nm−2 at 50 keV only a small change in stoichiometry is expected for the center of the thick oxide layer. A high Si excess due to ion beam mixing is only observed close to the Si/SiO2 interface. As a result, two

Nanostructure-induced performance degradation of WO₃·nH₂O for energy conversion and storage devices

• Zhenyin Hai,
• Mohammad Karbalaei Akbari,
• Zihan Wei,
• Danfeng Cui,
• Chenyang Xue,
• Hongyan Xu,
• Philippe M. Heynderickx,
• Francis Verpoort and
• Serge Zhuiykov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2845–2854, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.265

• deionized water to a total volume of 12.5 mL accompanied by another 15 min of stirring. The prepared seed solution was spin-coated onto FTO/glass at 3000 rpm for four times with each step consisting of 40 s spin-coating at room temperature followed by annealing at 350 °C for 20 min. The as-prepared FTO

Graphene-enhanced metal oxide gas sensors at room temperature: a review

• Dongjin Sun,
• Yifan Luo,
• Marc Debliquy and
• Chao Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2832–2844, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.264

• active sites. Meng and co-workers [81] published an inspiring study, where they develop a microwave-assisted hydrothermal technique to grow CuO rods in GO suspension using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a soft template. The Cu2O nanorods–rGO hybrids obtained after annealing showed a porous

Oriented zinc oxide nanorods: A novel saturable absorber for lasers in the near-infrared

• Pavel Loiko,
• Tanujjal Bora,
• Josep Maria Serres,
• Haohai Yu,
• Magdalena Aguiló,
• Francesc Díaz,
• Uwe Griebner,
• Valentin Petrov,
• Xavier Mateos and
• Joydeep Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2730–2740, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.255

• -level pulse energy. The output characteristics of these lasers were limited by the scattering losses in ZnO NRs, which can be optimized by the synthesis method, for example, by additional annealing. Further improvement of the ZnO NR SA properties can follow two routes. First, the ZnO nanostructures can

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

• are prepared in deionized water. Target molecules are absorbed on Au(111) flat films that have undergone standard flame annealing in order to obtain crystalline terraces of about 100 nm in size. The gold film substrates are immersed for 2 h and 30 min and subsequently rinsed in deionized water in

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

• ] observed that a water-based electrolyte containing NH4F induced a co-doping with F and N in the TNTs. Their study suggested that a combination of applied potential and annealing temperature were responsible for the high photocatalytic activity (PCA) of their materials in the oxidation of methyl orange. In

• measurements were performed and the results are shown for Ti 2p, O 1s, F 1s and N 1s in Figure 2 and Table 1. All measurements were obtained after thermal annealing, for which the discussion of composition in terms of carbon is not considered. At first glance, the presence of fluorine can be observed which

• and optical properties and this is further discussed in the following sections. Raman spectroscopy Raman spectra obtained after annealing at 450 °C in air are shown in Figure 4. Anatase is the stable phase with bands at 193.1 (Eg), 393.7 (B1g), 514.2 (A1g), and 634.7 cm−1 (Eg), as well as a sharp and

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

• eutectic from Au and the substrate. In order to determine homogeneous shape and space distribution, the influence of annealing conditions and the initial thickness of the Au film on the nanostructures was analyzed. For the surface morphology studies, SEM and AFM measurements were performed. The structure

• thin films are most often metastable and can dewet or agglomerate with increase of temperature. During annealing of thin films, small fluctuations of the film thickness appear leading to the creation of voids in the film and their subsequent growth. This can happen well below melting temperature of the

• requirement for very small time steps. Results and Discussion Structure and UV–vis absorption The formation of nanostructures from 2.8 nm thick Au thin films, at different annealing temperatures is shown in Figure 2b–g. All films presented in these pictures were annealed for 15 min. For comparison, an SEM

Exploring the photoleakage current and photoinduced negative bias instability in amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors with various active layer thicknesses

• Dapeng Wang and
• Mamoru Furuta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2573–2580, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.239

• annealing and N2O plasma treatment [31]; and (ii) inactivating the defects in the semiconductor by means of introducing new elements to form stable chemical bonds with the defects, for example by fluoride ion implantation and nitrogen annealing [32][33]. Conclusion The impact of the TIGZO on the

High-temperature magnetism and microstructure of a semiconducting ferromagnetic (GaSb)_1−x(MnSb)_x alloy

• Leonid N. Oveshnikov,
• Elena I. Nekhaeva,
• Alexey V. Kochura,
• Alexander B. Davydov,
• Mikhail A. Shakhov,
• Sergey F. Marenkin,
• Oleg A. Novodvorskii,
• Alexander P. Kuzmenko,
• Alexander L. Vasiliev,
• Boris A. Aronzon and
• Erkki Lahderanta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2457–2465, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.230

• pristine films correspond to diffraction patterns for the hexagonal compound with the space group P63/mmc. Also, the image analysis showed that the morphology of the film and the lateral dimensions of the film columns remained the same after annealing. It should be noted, that the energy-dispersive X-ray

• microanalysis showed a slight (2–3%) decrease of Mn content in the film volume after annealing. This can be related to the details of sample preparation (e.g., the presence of a thicker damaged layer on the surface) or to the diffusion of Mn atoms. Thus, we can conclude that film annealing causes a phase

• )1−x(MnSb)x films with x = 0.41 and thickness d = 120–135 nm. Electron microscopy data suggests that studied films have single-phase columnar structure in the volume. It was found that annealing process induces a phase transition of hexagonal GaSb matrix into a cubic matrix. AFM and MFM studies

Pinning of a ferroelectric Bloch wall at a paraelectric layer

• Vilgelmina Stepkova and
• Jiří Hlinka

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2356–2360, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.220

• ferroelectric Bloch walls encountering a layer of paraelectric material by means of phase-field simulation. This technique allows the relaxed domain wall profiles to be predicted by simulated annealing of the system based on numerical solution of material-specific time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau–Devonshire

• the walls in the simulation box, but there were no real constrains introduced there, only the natural limitations resulting from the standard protocol of simulated annealing procedure, governed by the time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau equation. The hysteresis loop shown in Figure 8 has been calculated

Block copolymers for designing nanostructured porous coatings

• Roberto Nisticò

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2332–2344, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.218

• -organic bond. The aqueous environment favored the extraction of the freely accessible, soluble PEO and Ru-PEO moieties, leaving both PS and Ru-PS moieties to form the nanoporous polymeric matrix. It has been demonstrated that by controlling the annealing procedure and the humidity, it is possible to

• domains are horizontally (parallel) oriented [90]. As reported previously [90], the order achieved in thin films made by PS-b-PEO copolymers depends only on either the solvent casting or the solvent vapor annealing conditions, and not the substrate. Furthermore, the presence of the solvent in these

Two-dimensional photonic crystals increasing vertical light emission from Si nanocrystal-rich thin layers

• Lukáš Ondič,
• Marian Varga,
• Ivan Pelant,
• Alexander Kromka,
• Karel Hruška and
• Robert G. Elliman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2287–2296, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.213

• good qualitative agreement with the measured ones. Fabrication of the samples Firstly, SiNC-rich layers were fabricated by Si ion implantation into a polished silica substrate followed by thermal annealing at 1100 °C (for details see [28]). An implant energy of 400 keV with an implant fluence of 1

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

• swiftly loaded into the ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) annealing chamber. All NWell samples were contacted via a lateral metal contact frame on the front surface which was processed by photolithographical structuring, wet-chemical mesa etching and thermal evaporation of Al. The reference Si-wafer was contacted

Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2209–2235, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.207

• annealing at 100 °C [162]. The last step yields a much more uniform and homogeneous MABI layer than conventional single-step spin-coating/annealing resulting in almost doubled PCE. Highly compact and pin-hole-free MABI films can be produced by a two-step process including the high-vacuum deposition of BiI3

• MAPI [88]. Cs3Sb2I9 can exist as two polymorphs – a layered (2D) modification built by two-dimensional layers of polyanions and a “dimer” (0D) form built of isolated dioctahedral Sb2I93− anions [89]. The HP formation can be directed to one of these forms by tailoring the temperature of annealing, the

• 0D and 2D modifications forming at 150 and 250 °C, respectively. The layered 2D form demonstrated higher electron and hole mobilities and a better tolerance to defects as compared to the dimer-built 0D polymorph. The 2D-Cs3Sb2I9 HP can be formed by annealing the original metal iodide mixture at 250

Electrospun one-dimensional nanostructures: a new horizon for gas sensing materials

• Muhammad Imran,
• Nunzio Motta and
• Mahnaz Shafiei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2128–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.202

• fabrication strategy for synthesis of SnO2 NFs with a branch-on-stem morphology using electrospinning, oxygen plasma etching, sputtering and annealing. Electrospun PVP NFs were first etched with oxygen plasma to make a hierarchical template. Afterwards, a SnO2 film is deposited by sputtering and the PVP

• template is removed by annealing. The morphology of the NFs is dependent on sputtering time, resulting in uniformly distributed branches all over stem. Jun et al. [77] developed polypyrrole (PPy)-coated SnO2 tube-in-tube structures using single-nozzle electrospinning with a phase separation solvent method

• annealing and calcination [83]. A very low detection limit (9.7 ppb NOx) with an optimal response time (20 s) is achieved with nanocrystalline (5–10 nm) SnO2 NTs at room temperature [141]. Similar behaviour is exhibited by p-type NiO and CuO toward CO and NO2 [111][112]. The gas sensing behaviour also

Spin-coated planar Sb₂S₃ hybrid solar cells approaching 5% efficiency

• Pascal Kaienburg,
• Benjamin Klingebiel and
• Thomas Kirchartz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2114–2124, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.200

• routes based on different precursors reported in the literature. By studying the film morphology, sub-bandgap absorption and solar cell performance, improved annealing procedures are found and the crystallization temperature is shown to be critical. In order to determine the optimized processing

• annealing process that considerably improves substrate coverage. We compare both process routes in terms of morphology, electronic defects and device performance with a focus on the crystallization step. For optimized annealing conditions, we vary the hole transport material and illustrate a qualitatively

• visible. For better comparison, SEM images of substrates without Sb2S3 can be found in Figure S1, Supporting Information File 1. The morphology is improved by annealing the films at 100 °C directly after spin-coating for approximately 60 minutes prior to thermal decomposition at 180 °C. Figure 2b shows

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

• capping layer the dopant monolayer is essentially “burnt” off during high-temperature annealing. Cap removal was carried out using a standard buffered oxide etch. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to acquire high-resolution topographic images to evaluate the surface quality throughout MLD processing

• × 1020 cm−3. However, due to the inaccuracy of SIMS in this region it is difficult to assess these values. One possible reason for these elevated values may be dopant trapping by SiO2 during the annealing process. The surface oxidation found after functionalization (Figure 6) has the potential to inhibit

• diffusion into the substrate. Other research groups [7][8][18], working on P diffusion doping using a variety of techniques have also seen limitations at 2 × 1019 cm−3. This was further examined by using longer annealing times of 10 and 100 s. Figure S1 (Supporting Information File 1) shows that this leads

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

• . Post-annealing of the samples in a tube oven, in air, at 350 °C for 3 h with a ramp of 11 °C/min was needed for the formation of anatase TiO2 (Figure S2, Supporting Information File 1). Photo-electrochemical deposition For the deposition of platinum nanoparticles, a photo-electrochemical cell (Zahner

Metal-free catalysis based on nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials: a photoelectron spectroscopy point of view

• Mattia Scardamaglia and
• Carla Bittencourt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2015–2031, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.191

• valence band (VB) spectra with high energy resolution [58]. They correlated the change in the DOS to the different types of nitrogen functionalities incorporated in the carbon matrix, using X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and in situ annealing. Specifically, it was shown that through annealing at

• ion kinetic energy or plasma parameters as well as the annealing conditions [81][82]. Recently, in accordance with the theoretical report of Krasheninnikov et al. [83], Scardamaglia et al. showed that for the doping of carbon nanostructures in a suspended geometry, the use of energetic ions with

• , Scardamaglia et al. [37] showed that the sp2-character of the material is maintained or easily recovered through thermal annealing (Figure 6). A nitrogen atom can be hosted in the hexagonal carbon network in many forms. The three most common configurations are pyridinic (N1), pyrrolic (N2) and graphitic (N3

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

• annealing, dehalogenation as well as cyclodehydrogenation can be achieved, which leads to clean, defect-free GNRs. Therefore, ideal contacts, free of contaminants, can be grown on the gold surface. The GNRs are observed to move preferentially in the [−101] direction, where the moiré pattern forming with Au

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

• momentary rise of the conductance, which we attribute to the desorption of surface contaminants as well as a temperature annealing of the constriction due to dissipation of the electrical power in this area. This effect can be traced in Figure 2a at around t = 150 s. An example of another temperature effect

• . We substantiate this hypothesis by the temporary improvement of the conductance at t = 150 s before the onset of electromigration discussed in Figure 2a. The SEM image of Figure 2c is also providing additional confirmation of a partial annealing of the constriction. In the area marked “annealed zone

• connections. The areas colored in red are made by electron-beam lithography, the regions in blue are those fabricated by photolithography. (a) Temporal extract of the electromigration sequence featuring the effect of partial annealing, Joule heating and onset of electromigration on the evolution of the

Defect formation in multiwalled carbon nanotubes under low-energy He and Ne ion irradiation

• Santhana Eswara,
• Jean-Nicolas Audinot,
• Brahime El Adib,
• Maël Guennou,
• Tom Wirtz and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1951–1963, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.186

• , ion irradiation can also be used to modify the electronic properties. The presence of defects can increase the resistivity by several orders of magnitude [2][16]. When combining low-fluence ion irradiation with subsequent annealing, the electrical conductivity of SWCNTs can be improved [17]. The

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

• thick SiGe test structure fabricated by CVD and uniformly doped in situ during growth. The developed method is finally applied to the investigation of dopant activation achieved by advanced annealing methods (including millisecond and nanosecond laser annealing) in two material systems: 6 nm thick

• mobility; contact resistance; differential Hall effect; dopant activation; fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI); laser annealing; sub-nanometre resolution; Introduction The research efforts made throughout the last decades have made it possible to keep the momentum for a continuous miniaturization

• increase of the active dopant concentration at the surface of the source/drain material (usually Si or SiGe) is a key factor for obtaining a resistance reduction [6], and several process solutions have been proposed to this purpose, involving advanced implanting or annealing techniques [7]. Within this

Electrical characterization of single nanometer-wide Si fins in dense arrays

• Steven Folkersma,
• Janusz Bogdanowicz,
• Andreas Schulze,
• Paola Favia,
• Dirch H. Petersen,
• Ole Hansen,
• Henrik H. Henrichsen,
• Peter F. Nielsen,
• Lior Shiv and
• Wilfried Vandervorst

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1863–1867, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.178

• implantation and annealing treatment. This increase in sheet resistance when going to nanoscale elongated geometries was expected and understood to originate from the presence of interface states as well as defects at the fin sidewalls [6]. Conclusion This paper demonstrates the capability of μ4pp to