Design of surface nanostructures for chirality sensing based on quartz crystal microbalance

• Yinglin Ma,
• Xiangyun Xiao and
• Qingmin Ji

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 1201–1219, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.100

• modified QCM sensors [29]. The sensor layers were constructed by self-assembly of ʟ(ᴅ)-Val monolayers or comb-teeth-type grafted polymer brushes with ʟ(ᴅ)-Val. According to the frequency shifts upon bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption, ʟ-Val-modified sensors were shown to have a stronger binding to BSA

Recent progress in magnetic applications for micro- and nanorobots

• Ke Xu,
• Shuang Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 744–755, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.58

• used in medical MNRs [26]. For example, based on the combination of copolymer brushes and superparamagnetic nanoparticles, a biomimetic nanoreactor was proposed. It contained a magnetic field-responsive catalytic system, namely magnetic field-responsive binary deoxyribozyme (MaBiDZ) [27]. Also, it

pH-Controlled fluorescence switching in water-dispersed polymer brushes grafted to modified boron nitride nanotubes for cellular imaging

• Saban Kalay,
• Yurij Stetsyshyn,
• Volodymyr Donchak,
• Khrystyna Harhay,
• Ostap Lishchynskyi,
• Halyna Ohar,
• Yuriy Panchenko,
• Stanislav Voronov and
• Mustafa Çulha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2428–2439, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.233

• Lviv, Ukraine 10.3762/bjnano.10.233 Abstract pH-Switchable, fluorescent, hybrid, water-dispersible nanomaterials based on boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) and grafted copolymer brushes (poly(acrylic acid-co-fluorescein acrylate) – P(AA-co-FA)) were successfully fabricated in a two-step process. The

• (DU145) and are suitable for further evaluation in cellular imaging applications. Keywords: boron nitride nanotubes; cellular imaging; fluorescence; pH switching; polymer brushes; surface modification; Introduction In recent years, considerable effort has been devoted to the development of hybrid

• polymer brushes via polymerization initiated from their surface [12][28]. In particular, BNNTs were covalently modified with hydrophobic polystyrene or poly(glycidyl methacrylate) polymer brushes [28]. The modified nanotubes demonstrated high dispersibility in a large number of organic solvents. In our

Adhesive contact of rough brushes

• Qiang Li and
• Valentin L. Popov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2405–2412, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.225

• gecko feet and structured biomimetic materials. For rigid brushes, the contact splitting does not enhance adhesion even if all pillars of the brush are positioned at the same height. Introducing statistical scatter of height leads to a further decrease of the maximum adhesive strength. At the same time

• modification due to finite size effect of the brush. Keywords: adhesion; brushes; contact splitting; pressure sensitive adhesion; roughness; Introduction The study of adhesive contacts has been largely enhanced by studies of the extremely effective adhesion pads of geckos [1]. For example, the adhesion can

• of stress in the vicinity of the boundary of the “apparent contact”. In the present paper we extend the previous work by considering “rough brushes”. Related problems have been studied using a number of purely statistical models, which did not consider the elastic interactions between asperities

Nanocomposites comprised of homogeneously dispersed magnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles and poly(methyl methacrylate)

• Sašo Gyergyek,
• David Pahovnik,
• Ema Žagar,
• Alenka Mertelj,
• Rok Kostanjšek,
• Miloš Beković,
• Marko Jagodič,
• Heinrich Hofmann and
• Darko Makovec

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1613–1622, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.153

• are grafting density, molar mass of grafted chains (brushes) and conformation of brushes. Grafting density strongly influences chain conformation. At a large grafting density, brushes cannot adopt a random coil conformation but instead adopt a stretched brush conformation and their length (h) is

Nanoporous silicon nitride-based membranes of controlled pore size, shape and areal density: Fabrication as well as electrophoretic and molecular filtering characterization

• Axel Seidenstücker,
• Stefan Beirle,
• Fabian Enderle,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Othmar Marti and
• Alfred Plettl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1390–1398, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.131

• polymer brushes [31]). During this process, precise control of the pull-out velocity and the suppression of any vibrations are essential and determine the quality of the homogeneous areal density of the NPs, and thus, the related density of the pores later on. After drying of the micellar film, the

Preparation of thick silica coatings on carbon fibers with fine-structured silica nanotubes induced by a self-assembly process

• Benjamin Baumgärtner,
• Hendrik Möller,
• Thomas Neumann and
• Dirk Volkmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1145–1155, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.116

• timeframe of 40 min. It has to be emphasized that no addition of any further acid or base catalyst is necessary to induce the observed rapid hydrolytic condensation of TMOS. This can be explained by the high density of catalytically active ethylenimine brushes enriched on the surface of the aggregates

Vapor deposition routes to conformal polymer thin films

• Priya Moni,
• Ahmed Al-Obeidi and
• Karen K. Gleason

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 723–735, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.76

• silica microspheres for biological sensors, as seen in Figure 9a [29]. Lahann and coworkers used parylene CVD to form thin films of poly[(p-xylene-4-methyl-2-bromoisobutyrate)-co-(p-xylene)] which served as a conformal initiating layer for atom transfer radical polymerization to produce conformal brushes

Methods for preparing polymer-decorated single exchange-biased magnetic nanoparticles for application in flexible polymer-based films

• Laurence Ourry,
• Delphine Toulemon,
• Souad Ammar and
• Fayna Mammeri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 408–417, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.43

• grafting processes, living-radical polymerization (e.g., atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) or nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP)) makes it possible to establish robust polymer–particle bonds and then grow polymer brushes of controlled

• carbon are representative of the CoO shell [30] and the PS brushes, respectively, to determine the PS thickness from the C 1s and Co 2p peaks and their relative intensities. The thicknesses were found to be 2.5 ± 0.5 nm for ENP-PS-18 and 3.0 ± 0.5 nm for ENP-PS-24. However, in the XPS chamber (under

• by grafting of ATRP initiator. Size distributions of ENPs, in polyol solvent (diethylene glycol) and functionalized by oleic acid, dispersed in tetrahydrofuran solvent (THF), obtained by DLS. TEM images of magnetic ENPs decorated with PMMA brushes: (a,b) ENP-Br obtained through direct grafting of

Template-controlled piezoactivity of ZnO thin films grown via a bioinspired approach

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Fabian Streb,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Zaklina Burghard and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 296–303, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.32

• ]. Additionally, organic templates are used to modify the surface of the substrate. Especially self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) [23][24], thin polymer brushes [25] or polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEL) [26] were successfully applied for the deposition of ZnO thin films. With these molecules, a multitude of

Impact of surface wettability on S-layer recrystallization: a real-time characterization by QCM-D

• Jagoba Iturri,
• Ana C. Vianna,
• Alberto Moreno-Cencerrado,
• Dietmar Pum,
• Uwe B. Sleytr and
• José Luis Toca-Herrera

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 91–98, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.10

• , gold) [5][6][7][8][9], with coatings of different nature (lipid bilayers, SAMs, polyelectrolyte multilayers) [10][11][12][13][14] and even on structures with an important contribution in the Z-axis, as recently reported for charged polyelectrolyte brushes [15]. However, some fundamental questions are

Three-gradient regular solution model for simple liquids wetting complex surface topologies

• Sabine Akerboom,
• Marleen Kamperman and
• Frans A. M. Leermakers

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1377–1396, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.129

Chemical bath deposition of textured and compact zinc oxide thin films on vinyl-terminated polystyrene brushes

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Caroline G. Hofmeister,
• Peter Lindemann,
• Cheng Huang,
• Johannes Baier,
• Andreas Leineweber,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Christof Wöll,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 102–110, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.12

• polystyrene brush on the deposition of ZnO thin films under moderate conditions. On a non-modified SiOx surface, island growth is observed, whereas the polymer brush induces homogeneous film growth. A chemical modification of the polystyrene brushes during the mineralization process occurs, which enables

• measurements as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Infrared spectroscopy (IR) measurements were used to investigate the polystyrene brushes before and after modification. Keywords: bioinspired synthesis; polymer brush; template activation

• [36] as organic templates are known, which can modify the surface charge on the substrates for ZnO precipitation under moderate conditions. Based on these studies, we investigated the ZnO film formation on silicon wafers modified with vinyl-terminated polystyrene (PS) brushes. Those brushes consist of

Self-assembled anchor layers/polysaccharide coatings on titanium surfaces: a study of functionalization and stability

• Ognen Pop-Georgievski,
• Dana Kubies,
• Josef Zemek,
• Neda Neykova,
• Roman Demianchuk,
• Eliška Mázl Chánová,
• Miroslav Šlouf,
• Milan Houska and
• František Rypáček

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 617–631, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.63

• PDA units can establish a wide range of non-covalent bonds through π stacking, hydrogen bonding, and van der Waals- and hydrophobic-interactions. PDA films have been used as the anchor layers of non-fouling polymer brushes [32][33][34], substrates for cell adhesion [35][36] and as platforms for

Synthesis of boron nitride nanotubes and their applications

• Saban Kalay,
• Zehra Yilmaz,
• Ozlem Sen,
• Melis Emanet,
• Emine Kazanc and
• Mustafa Çulha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 84–102, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.9

• and it might be worthwhile to further investigate it [71]. BNNT-grafted, poly(glycidyl methacrylate) and polystyrene brushes were prepared via atom transfer radical polymerization [72]. The resulting nanocomposite material was characterized using FTIR, TGA, SEM and TEM. The TEM images clearly show the

Macromolecular shape and interactions in layer-by-layer assemblies within cylindrical nanopores

• Thomas D. Lazzara,
• K. H. Aaron Lau,
• Wolfgang Knoll,
• Andreas Janshoff and
• Claudia Steinem

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 475–484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.54

• barriers that limit the amount of material that can be stepwise incorporated. Confinement in nanoporous environments can, for example, decrease the apparent pKa values of cationic polymer brushes, a priori polymerized in pores with 10–40 nm pore diameters, by more than a full pH unit [33]. Dobrynin and co

Colloidal lithography for fabricating patterned polymer-brush microstructures

• Tao Chen,
• Debby P. Chang,
• Rainer Jordan and
• Stefan Zauscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 397–403, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.46

• -initiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) to fabricate patterned polymer-brush microstructures. The advantages of the CL technique over other lithographic approaches for the fabrication of patterned polymer brushes are (i) that it can be carried out with commercially available colloidal

• brushes [13] are of increasing importance especially for array-based platforms because of their ability to modify surface properties and their potential applications in surface-based technologies, such as protein-resistant coatings, switchable sensors, substrates for cell-growth control, and for the

• entail instrumental complexity. As an inexpensive alternative to conventional lithography, CL provides new possibilities to create patterned polymer brushes. So far only one of the CL strategies, using the SMM footprint as the mask, has been demonstrated for fabricating patterned pillar [23] or cavity

Surface induced self-organization of comb-like macromolecules

• Konstantin I. Popov,
• Vladimir V. Palyulin,
• Martin Möller,
• Alexei R. Khokhlov and
• Igor I. Potemkin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 569–584, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.61

• estimated by comparison of the free energies of rectilinear and curved brushes, and calculations led to the following result: λ ~ σ17/8M15/8, where M is the number of segments in the side chain and σ is the grafting density of the side chains, σ < 1. The expression for the diameter of the tube D ~ σ1/4M3/4

• –shell cylindrical polymer brushes with a solvophobic inner (core) block and a solvophilic outer (shell) block in selective solvents [49]. Combs with two types of incompatible side chains (binary brushes) obviously represent quite intriguing objects due to the potential for intrachain segregation leading

• spontaneously curved conformations under certain conditions, but failed to find the regime of complete separation into two distinct domains. Further studies were done by Binder et al. [44][45] for combs with high grafting density (bottle-brushes). They suggested that separation in comb copolymers with two types

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

• ][26], DNA [27] or lipid bilayers [28]. Recently, Bumbu et al. [29] applied the static mode technique to study the behavior of poly(methyl methacrylate) brushes that had been polymerized from the silicon surface of a microcantilever sensor, i.e., using a “grafting from” approach. While this allowed the

• authors to study the in situ swelling and collapse of poly(methyl methacrylate) brushes, the kinetics of brush formation could not be monitored in real-time. The driving impetus behind this work is to apply microcantilever sensors operated in static mode to study in real-time (1) the kinetic aspects of

• transition in the layer (see Discussion). To further characterize the conformation of the PEG layer, we repeated our AFM measurements in 20% 2-propanol which is a poor solvent for PEG. This is because polymer brushes are known to form more compact “collapsed” clusters, known as pinned micelles, in poor