Mechanism of silica–lysozyme composite formation unravelled by in situ fast SAXS

• Tomasz M. Stawski,
• Daniela B. van den Heuvel,
• Rogier Besselink,
• Dominique J. Tobler and
• Liane G. Benning

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 182–197, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.17

• associated with the diffusion-limited particle–cluster aggregation (DLPCA) mechanism [47][48][49][50][51][52]. The DLPCA growth mode is also evidenced not only by the plateau value of D, but also through the fact that the value of D increases with the size/extent of the aggregates [47][49] expressed

• . This model allowed us to unravel that the formation follows a diffusion limited particle–cluster aggregation (DLPCA) mechanism, which results in relatively densely packed mass-fractal-like aggregates within which non-fractal correlated domains of particles evolve. Furthermore, we used the scattering

Nanoporous water oxidation electrodes with a low loading of laser-deposited Ru/C exhibit enhanced corrosion stability

• Sandra Haschke,
• Dmitrii Pankin,
• Vladimir Mikhailovskii,
• Maïssa K. S. Barr,
• Adriana Both-Engel,
• Alina Manshina and
• Julien Bachmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 157–167, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.15

• supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) via the bridge funding of the excellence cluster “Engineering of Advanced Materials” (EXC315) and by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) via the German-Russian Interdisciplinary Research Center (projects; C-2016b-2, C-21017a-2). The Raman

Sputtering of silicon nanopowders by an argon cluster ion beam

• Xiaomei Zeng,
• Vasiliy Pelenovich,
• Zhenguo Wang,
• Wenbin Zuo,
• Sergey Belykh,
• Alexander Tolstogouzov,
• Dejun Fu and
• Xiangheng Xiao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 135–143, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.13

• (CeFITec), Dept. de Física da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, 2829-516, Portugal 10.3762/bjnano.10.13 Abstract In this work an Ar+ cluster ion beam with energy in the range of 10–70 keV and dose of 7.2 × 1014–2.3 × 1016 cluster/cm2 was used to irradiate

• pressed Si nanopowder targets consisting of particles with a mean diameter of 60 nm. The influence of the target density and the cluster ion beam parameters (energy and dose) on the sputtering depth and sputtering yield was studied. The sputtering yield was found to decrease with increasing dose and

• near 17 keV. The dose and energy dependence of the sputtering yield was explained by the competition of the finite size effect and the effect of debris formation. Keywords: finite size effect; gas cluster ion beam; silicon nanoparticles; smoothing effect; sputtering; Introduction Etching using gas

Time-resolved universal temperature measurements using NaYF₄:Er³⁺,Yb³⁺ upconverting nanoparticles in an electrospray jet

• Kristina Shrestha,
• Arwa A. Alaulamie,
• Ali Rafiei Miandashti and
• Hugh H. Richardson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2916–2924, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.270

• temperature measurement unless a calibration is made under identical conditions. We observed that the peak shape of the S-band changes with 980 nm laser intensity (Figure 3) and with the 980 nm laser excitation time (see below in Figure 5). Figure 3A shows H- and S-band for a single cluster of ca. 1 μm UCNPs

• calibration are shaded in green and brown, respectively, in (A). The slope of the line calculated is −1182 ± 8 K and the intercept is 3.002 ± 0.021. Measurement of temperature of UCNPs at different laser intensities of 980 nm. (A) Photoluminescence spectra of a single cluster of UCNPs of ca. 1 μm size at

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

• density of NCs and even NCs that are connected to the interface are observed in the simulation (see Figure 2b). In general, by carefully comparing Figure 1 with the simulated Si NC bands, presented in Figure 2, one can see that neither the cluster size nor the density matches perfectly. To obtain a

Optimization of Mo/Cr bilayer back contacts for thin-film solar cells

• Nima Khoshsirat,
• Fawad Ali,
• Vincent Tiing Tiong,
• Mojtaba Amjadipour,
• Hongxia Wang,
• Mahnaz Shafiei and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2700–2707, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.252

• regions were acquired with 10 eV pass energy and about 0.4 eV spectral resolution to discriminate the substructure of the spectral lines. Ar+ ion cluster etching was employed for XPS depth profiling and the calibration was carried out using a typical Mo on glass sample with sputtering rate of 15.5 nm/s

• . Depth profiling was conducted on a 1 × 1 mm2 area with a Ar+ ion beam energy of 10 keV and large cluster size (n = 2000). Results and Discussion Adhesion The first characterization step was the adhesion test performed on Mo layers after deposition on uncoated and Cr-coated glass substrates. All samples

• any Cr or Na signal in the Mo layer, by etching the film via argon gas cluster ions for 4 min before each XPS acquisition until the signal from the substrate was visible. The result is shown in Figure 7 for a Mo/Cr film deposited at 200 W and 3 mTorr (high-resolution spectra of Mo 3d and Cr 2p are

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

• same spectra measured for the as-prepared film and for bulk Au are added. The binding energy of the Au 4f core-level shifts, depending on cluster size, cluster–substrate interactions, cluster morphology and charge transfer between cluster and substrates [23][24]. Additionally, the peak ratio of the Au

• 4f7/2 and 4f5/2 excitations differs from the statistical ratio of 4:3 and the linewidths (FWHM) are not equal. The size of the clusters can also affect the symmetry of the Au 4f7/2 peak on the side of higher binding energies, and the asymmetry increases with decreasing cluster size. In our

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

• was suggested [9] that the ferromagnetic ordering in this case is induced by the interaction of MnSb magnetic clusters with carriers inside the matrix. It should induce carrier spin-polarization and lead to the formation of a long-range ferromagnetic percolation cluster, which includes both MnSb

Surface energy of nanoparticles – influence of particle size and structure

• Dieter Vollath,
• Franz Dieter Fischer and
• David Holec

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2265–2276, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.211

• indication of a structural feature. However, it is remarkable that the first extremum occurs, in both cases, for a cluster consisting of 13 atoms and the second one for a cluster size of 43 atoms. The number 13 is a so-called “magic number” for cluster sizes; however, the number 43 is far off from the second

• magic number for clusters consisting of 55 atoms. More detailed insight is provided by a thorough ab initio study analyzing the Au55 cluster performed by Holec et al. [53] and Vollath et al. [14]. These studies established the fact that the most stable state of this cluster is glassy. The accompanying

• radius is a crucial problem that may be solved using a correction derived by Holec et al. [53]. The enthalpy of sublimation is determined as the binding energy of the outmost atoms of the particle. Figure 18 displays the binding energy for the atoms of the outmost layer of the glassy Au55 cluster. To

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

• particles can be of importance. This was demonstrated by MD simulations for gold clusters on HOPG, where a significant reduction of static friction was found by simply increasing the cluster thickness. As a result, the nanostructure becomes elastically stiffer, which goes along with a reduced tendency to

Synthesis of hafnium nanoparticles and hafnium nanoparticle films by gas condensation and energetic deposition

• Irini Michelakaki,
• Nikos Boukos,
• Dimitrios A. Dragatogiannis,
• Spyros Stathopoulos,
• Costas A. Charitidis and
• Dimitris Tsoukalas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1868–1880, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.179

• alternative method to tune the porosity of the NTFs. 3D NTF patterning Cluster beam deposition combined with patterning for fabricating 3D objects has been successfully performed by other groups with techniques such as supersonic cluster beam deposition combined with stencil masks [65][66]. In our case we

• target (99.95%). Due to collisions with Ar gas, cooling of the sputtered metal atoms takes place, leading to a supersaturated metal atom vapor. Collisions between the cooled metal atoms lead to nucleation and growth of initial clusters. Collisions between these initial cluster ‘seeds’ followed by

Nanoscale electrochemical response of lithium-ion cathodes: a combined study using C-AFM and SIMS

• Jonathan Op de Beeck,
• Nouha Labyedh,
• Alfonso Sepúlveda,
• Valentina Spampinato,
• Alexis Franquet,
• Thierry Conard,
• Philippe M. Vereecken,
• Wilfried Vandervorst and
• Umberto Celano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1623–1628, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.154

• (detecting the Li concentration at the surface) and C-AFM (local conductivity) in succession in the same area for the case of the RF-sputtered LMO cathode is shown in Figure 2a. The static SIMS analysis is performed using a Bi3 cluster beam (spot size ca. 70 nm) in the area previously studied by C-AFM

Formation and development of nanometer-sized cybotactic clusters in bent-core nematic liquid crystalline compounds

• Yuri P. Panarin,
• Sithara P. Sreenilayam,
• Jagdish K. Vij,
• Anne Lehmann and
• Carsten Tschierske

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1288–1296, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.121

• dielectric strength and relaxation frequency for these processes are shown to give rise to sharpness in cluster boundaries, increased size and volume fraction in the LC nematic phase. The effect of the bias field on the LC cell is similar to reducing its temperature; both variables increase the cluster size

• and volume fraction and give rise to sharp cluster boundaries. The findings confirm that dielectric spectroscopy is a powerful and an extremely useful technique to provide a deeper understanding of the mechanism of cybotactic cluster formation in the isotropic liquid and the nematic phase of LCs as a

• correlations among the neighboring molecules were revealed and the cybotactic clusters were established [35][36][48]. This was the first successful attempt for determining the cluster size by using the Maier–Meier equations using dielectric parameters such as anisotropic permittivity and the anisotropic

Atomistic modeling of tribological properties of Pd and Al nanoparticles on a graphene surface

• Alexei Khomenko,
• Miroslav Zakharov,
• Denis Boyko and
• Bo N. J. Persson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1239–1246, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.115

• the metallic clusters is much stronger (in particular for the Pd cluster) than the interaction potential between a metal atom and the graphene carbon atoms, it is likely that the ordered domains of metal atoms are not commensurate with the graphene lattice at any point during slip. Nevertheless

Comparative study of antibacterial properties of polystyrene films with TiO_x and Cu nanoparticles fabricated using cluster beam technique

• Vladimir N. Popok,
• Cesarino M. Jeppesen,
• Peter Fojan,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Jan Hanuš and
• Ondřej Kylián

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 861–869, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.80

• describes a novel approach for the formation of bactericidal polymer thin films (polystyrene in this case), produced by spin-coating, with Ti and Cu NPs deposited from cluster beams. Ti NPs are treated in three different ways in order to study different approaches for oxidation and, thus, efficiency in

• same composite films making the suggested approach attractive for the cases requiring reusable polymer-based antibacterial media. Keywords: antibacterial properties; cluster beam technique; nanoparticles; polymers; Introduction Certain metals, when present in excess, become destructive or lethal to

• resistant against washing out in procedures. It has recently been shown that the deposition of metal NPs using the cluster beam technique is an efficient approach in the formation of polymer composite films with antibacterial properties. The composites can be formed by either incorporation of particles

Effect of microtrichia on the interlocking mechanism in the Asian ladybeetle, Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

• Jiyu Sun,
• Chao Liu,
• Bharat Bhushan,
• Wei Wu and
• Jin Tong

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 812–823, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.75

• changes in the middle of the abdomen. The density of the microtrichia changed from sparse to dense in each abdominal segment (shown in Figure 4b–d), and the number of microtrichia in each cluster gradually increased from single to multiple, corresponding to the change in density (Figure 4e–h). The spacing

• and functions. The arrangement of microtrichia on the abdominal terga exhibits a cyclical change in the middle of the abdomen. The density of the microtrichia shifts from sparse to dense in each abdominal segment, and the number of microtrichia in each cluster gradually increased from single to

• microtrichial arrangement on the middle of the abdomen; (j, k) the microtrichia on both sides of the abdomen; (j) the lateral margin; (k) part of the spicule patch; (i) part of the palisade fringe at the posterior margin of the tergum; (e, f, g, h) the number of microtrichia in each cluster gradually increases

Dynamics and fragmentation mechanism of (C₅H₄CH₃)Pt(CH₃)₃ on SiO₂ surfaces

• Kaliappan Muthukumar,
• Harald O. Jeschke and
• Roser Valentí

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 711–720, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.66

• simulated. For this purpose, a representative simple cluster model Si(OH)3 is considered. Although this does not account for the complete surface model, it is a good approximation to evaluate the reaction barriers for different reactions observed through the MD simulations. In the literature, such a simple

• )Pt(CH3)3 on SiO2 surfaces show that the dissociation begins with either the detachment of methyl groups or of the methylcyclopentadienyl ring. In the cluster model, the interaction of (C5H4CH3)Pt(CH3)3 with the surface Si atoms, has a barrier of 0.140 eV, when (C5H4CH3)Pt(CH3)3 interacts through the

• the elimination of methyl groups two surface active sites are necessary, and the model used here limits the computation of the reaction barriers to such cases. Possible pathways by which Pt(CH3)3 gets dissociated on the model cluster, in the presence and absence of O2 , are derived and shown in Scheme

Anchoring of a dye precursor on NiO(001) studied by non-contact atomic force microscopy

• Sara Freund,
• Antoine Hinaut,
• Nathalie Marinakis,
• Edwin C. Constable,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Catherine E. Housecroft and
• Thilo Glatzel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 242–249, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.26

• atomic rows of the substrate for this particular type of cluster is visible as observed for single molecules (see Figure 3e). Each DCPDMbpy in a cluster appears to lie flat implying that the adsorption geometry of the molecule on NiO(001) is the same when adsorbing as a single molecule or when forming

• clusters. One of the windmill-shaped clusters is resolved in Figure 4b,c. The topographic image (Figure 4b) shows clearly that the cluster is composed of four distinct molecules. Figure 4c, which was recorded during the second pass with a Z-offset of −350 pm, presents the same cluster with intramolecular

• chiralities. In fact, like many other molecules, DCPDMbpy is prochiral, when confined in two dimensions [61][62][63][64][65], implying the appearance of the surface enantiomers: α-DCPDMbpy and β-DCPDMbp (Figure 4d). In the case of the specific cluster imaged in Figure 4c it can be seen that the molecules A, B

Bombyx mori silk/titania/gold hybrid materials for photocatalytic water splitting: combining renewable raw materials with clean fuels

• Stefanie Krüger,
• Michael Schwarze,
• Otto Baumann,
• Christina Günter,
• Michael Bruns,
• Christian Kübel,
• Dorothée Vinga Szabó,
• Rafael Meinusch,
• Verónica de Zea Bermudez and
• Andreas Taubert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 187–204, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.21

• (Figure 3). Although the primary particles roughly have the same size in all samples, there are differences in the inter-particle distances. While the NPs in the TS samples show a more open, cluster-like structure with small pore-like spaces up to 100 nm, the TPS samples always exhibit very densely packed

Comparative study of post-growth annealing of Cu(hfac)₂, Co₂(CO)₈ and Me₂Au(acac) metal precursors deposited by FEBID

• Marcos V. Puydinger dos Santos,
• Aleksandra Szkudlarek,
• Artur Rydosz,
• Carlos Guerra-Nuñez,
• Fanny Béron,
• Kleber R. Pirota,
• Stanislav Moshkalev,
• José Alexandre Diniz and
• Ivo Utke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 91–101, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.11

• cluster size remains around 13 nm for all deposits: 12 nm, 13 nm and 14 nm for Co–C, Cu–C and Au–C deposits, respectively. Moreover, differences between the FEBID materials were observed with respect to the graphitisation process. Catalytic graphitisation using transition metals has been reported in

Transition from silicene monolayer to thin Si films on Ag(111): comparison between experimental data and Monte Carlo simulation

• Alberto Curcella,
• Romain Bernard,
• Yves Borensztein,
• Silvia Pandolfi and
• Geoffroy Prévot

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 48–56, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.7

• Reference ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02 and more specifically within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence MATISSE. We are grateful to Hervé Cruguel and Sébastien Royer for their technical support.

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

• photoelectron peaks of metallic Cu, Ag, and Au. Sample cleaning to remove organic contaminations was performed with the Thermo Scientific MAGCIS (Mono Atomic and Gas Cluster Ion Source) using Ar1000+ clusters at 8 keV primary energy and a raster size of 2 × 4 mm2. The adhesion force and energy were determined

One-step chemical vapor deposition synthesis and supercapacitor performance of nitrogen-doped porous carbon–carbon nanotube hybrids

• Egor V. Lobiak,
• Lyubov G. Bulusheva,
• Ekaterina O. Fedorovskaya,
• Yury V. Shubin,
• Pavel E. Plyusnin,
• Pierre Lonchambon,
• Boris V. Senkovskiy,
• Zinfer R. Ismagilov,
• Emmanuel Flahaut and
• Alexander V. Okotrub

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2669–2679, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.267

• ]. With the purpose to study the effect of the nature of the transition metal on the nitrogen content and the structure of the porous carbon–MWCNT hybrid, we used cluster-type polyoxomolybdates of Co, Ni, and Fe as catalyst precursors. In earlier work, we have shown that the thermal decomposition of such

• products of {Ni4Mo12}, {Co4Mo12}, and {Fe30Mo72} cluster compounds in air have revealed the presence of the phases NiMoO4 and CoMoO4 [22] as well as Fe2(Mo4)3 [29]. The reduction of these oxides in a CH4/H2 flow at 900 °C yields bimetallic particles as has been shown in our previous investigation [22

• carbon [2]. Conclusion Nitrogen-doped porous carbon/MWCNT hybrid materials were synthesized using cluster molecules containing molybdenum and transition metal as a source of catalytic nanoparticles for the CCVD synthesis. The cluster molecules were distributed over a MgO support before oxidation in air

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

• atoms of copper per micrometer of sliding have been removed. Then an atom-by-atom or atomic cluster by atomic cluster or nanograin-by-nanograin removal process may be involved in the wear mechanism. However, SEM imaging was of satisfactory resolution to precisely distinguish the morphology of the wear

Synthesis of [{AgO₂CCH₂OMe(PPh₃)}_n] and theoretical study of its use in focused electron beam induced deposition

• Jelena Tamuliene,
• Julian Noll,
• Peter Frenzel,
• Tobias Rüffer,
• Alexander Jakob,
• Bernhard Walfort and
• Heinrich Lang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2615–2624, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.262

• fragments from dissociation of [AgCH2OMe]. Supporting Information Supporting Information File 220: Additional figures and tables. Acknowledgements This work was conducted within the framework of the COST Action CM1301 (CELINA) and within the Federal Cluster of Excellence EXC 1075 MERGE Technologies for