Pull-off and friction forces of micropatterned elastomers on soft substrates: the effects of pattern length scale and stiffness

• Peter van Assenbergh,
• Marike Fokker,
• Julian Langowski,
• Jan van Esch,
• Marleen Kamperman and
• Dimitra Dodou

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 79–94, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.8

• assessing microscopic images of dispersion droplets of particles in water. Diameters of 100 particles were determined using ImageJ [43], and the average diameter and polydispersity index were determined using equations 1–3 from Nematollahzadeh et al.[44]. Fabrication of micropatterns Deposition of colloidal

A comparison of tarsal morphology and traction force in the two burying beetles Nicrophorus nepalensis and Nicrophorus vespilloides (Coleoptera, Silphidae)

• Liesa Schnee,
• Benjamin Sampalla,
• Josef K. Müller and
• Oliver Betz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 47–61, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.5

• in N. vespilloides. The body-size-corrected numbers are almost identical in both species. Surface roughness and contact angle measurements The contact angles (CA) of static droplets of doubly distilled water on the epoxy casts (10 surfaces for each combination) were about 40° on the hydrophilic

• surfaces with roughness values of 3 µm and 11 µm were not characterized by drop-shape analyses, as single droplets of doubly distilled water spread instantly over the treated surfaces, indicating a much higher surface polarity than the respective untreated surfaces. Traction force of animals having all

• s in Antispread E2 (E2/200 Fluorocarbon 60, Horb-Ahldorf, Germany) solution and air-dried for 24 h at room temperature, a method used previously [14][55]. All treated surfaces were controlled by means of static contact angle measurements by using five 4 µL droplets of doubly distilled water. Images

Controlling surface morphology and sensitivity of granular and porous silver films for surface-enhanced Raman scattering, SERS

• Sherif Okeil and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2813–2831, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.263

• Scientific UV–vis spectrophotometer (Evolution 600). The water contact angle was measured using a Krüss DSA 30 model drop-shape analysis system. The water contact angle was measured by placing 5 µL water droplets on the silver surface. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Al2O3 Silver films on glass substrates

• in the water contact angle. Especially after subsequent oxidation/reduction plasma treatments where nanoporous silver films are obtained, the silver films quickly absorb the droplets through capillary effects thus enabling the analyte to get in good contact with the silver surface. Evaluation of the

Biomimetic surface structures in steel fabricated with femtosecond laser pulses: influence of laser rescanning on morphology and wettability

• Camilo Florian Baron,
• Alexandros Mimidis,
• Daniel Puerto,
• Evangelos Skoulas,
• Emmanuel Stratakis,
• Javier Solis and
• Jan Siegel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2802–2812, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.262

• ). The instrumentation used to measure the contact angle (CA) was an OCA 15EC system that allows mechanical deposition of 4 µL deionized water droplets on the areas of interest. The system has a homogeneous illumination source and imaging optics that project the image of the droplet onto a CCD camera

• different experimental conditions, as indicated in Table 1. The plotted fluences are 0.12 (pink triangle), 0.2 (blue triangle), 0.5 (red circle) and 1 J/cm2 (black square). Side view of water droplets placed on different laser-processed areas. The labels/frame color of the right column of micrographs

Nanostructured liquid crystal systems and applications

• Alexei R. Khokhlov and
• Alexander V. Emelyanenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2644–2645, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.245

• structure on the nanoscale level for detection of small fractions of dopant materials. In this respect, much attention has been paid to the investigation of liquid crystal droplets dissolved in liquid, in particular, to the photoinduced orientation of liquid crystal molecules at the surface of a droplet

Characterization of the microscopic tribological properties of sandfish (Scincus scincus) scales by atomic force microscopy

• Weibin Wu,
• Christian Lutz,
• Simon Mersch,
• Richard Thelen,
• Christian Greiner,
• Guillaume Gomard and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2618–2627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.243

• droplets of 1 µL. Using larger volumes of 5 µL the water droplet gets in contact with several scales and the tissue between neighbouring scales. In this case, initial contact angles are smaller (92°) and decrease with time to values of about 80° to 60° after 10 min. We conclude that in the latter case the

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

• film so dewetting occurs while the film remains in the solid state. When the temperature of the system is increased up to the eutectic temperature, the solid–liquid transition takes place and liquid droplets remain on the support surface [2]. In plasmonics, one of the most commonly used metal is Au

Droplet-based synthesis of homogeneous magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles

• Christian D. Ahrberg,
• Ji Wook Choi and
• Bong Geun Chung

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2413–2420, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.226

• several distinct droplets. Furthermore, chaotic advection inside of the droplets can increase the mixing performance of these devices [25]. Current microfluidic technology allows for the production of stable droplets in large numbers with high production frequencies [26]. Therefore, a number of particles

• coprecipitation of iron oxide, nanoparticles inside of droplets should have significant benefits due to the fast mixing and thermal control compared to batch synthesis. Here, we show a droplet capillary reactor for the synthesis of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles using a coprecipitation reaction. Nanoparticles

• of hot-melt adhesive. The remaining tubing after the junction was submerged in a water bath and the end was placed into a vial filled with water for sample collection. For droplet experiments the formation of droplets was recorded using a bright-field microscope (IX37, Olympus, Japan). Droplet

High-throughput micro-nanostructuring by microdroplet inkjet printing

• Hendrikje R. Neumann and
• Christine Selhuber-Unkel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2372–2380, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.222

• in a high-throughput process. Inkjet printing was used to generate droplets of the micelle solution on surfaces, resulting in printed circles that contain patterns of gold nanoparticles with an interparticle spacing between 25 and 42 nm. We tested this method on different silicon and nickel–titanium

• generated on different types of silicon and nickel–titanium (NiTi) materials, thus providing a novel method to micro-nanostructure and functionalize materials, which are relevant in biomaterial and biosensor applications. Results and Discussion Inkjet printing for generating micelle solution droplets The

• 21.5 µm each, and the distance between the nozzles is 254 µm, 16 droplets in a row can be printed at once in less than 1 s. For printing the 4 × 4 matrix shown in Figure 2, a single nozzle was used at a nozzle frequency of about 80 kHz. Including the printer head movement, approximately 16 s were

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

• early approach, analyzing the equilibrium between a liquid phase and the surrounding vapor, Tolman [17] estimated the surface energy of small droplets. These considerations led to the relation In Equation 2 the quantity d, where d = 2R, stands for the particle diameter and R for its radius; δ is a

Filling nanopipettes with apertures smaller than 50 nm: dynamic microdistillation

• Evelyne Salançon and
• Bernard Tinland

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2181–2187, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.204

• molecules are not visible since they do not greatly affect the large meniscus. Most of the vaporized water heads for the narrow part of the nanopipette (right side on the pictures) and re-condenses as a string of droplets as soon as it encounters a significantly colder region. Moving the nanopipette inside

• the loop slowly and regularly away from the meniscus (velocity of about 1 mm/s) either pushes the water vapor with a “moving wall of heat” or re-vaporizes the condensed string of droplets, which re-condenses further. The droplets in the string become smaller and smaller as the tip narrows. The process

• , the reader can see the thin lines delimiting the droplets and the coming meniscus in Figure 4 (we did not enlarge the line thickness on purpose to maintain a global coherent scale). The process is repeated so that the tip water plug grows until the micrometer-scaled part of the capillary becomes

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

• series of experiments using an electrically charged piece of amber. He noticed that a water droplet attained a conical profile in the proximity of charged amber and, if the charge was strong enough, tiny droplets would evolve from the larger water droplet. Gilbert’s experiments laid the foundation for

Cryochemical synthesis of ultrasmall, highly crystalline, nanostructured metal oxides and salts

• Elena A. Trusova and
• Nikolai S. Trutnev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1755–1763, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.166

• (−196 °C) using a special jet injector with a cylindrical nozzle. The spray torch was sent to the liquid nitrogen container, where the formation of cryogranules occurred at a high cooling rate. The instantaneous freezing of the droplets produced by spraying led to the formation and crystallization of

Review on nanoparticles and nanostructured materials: history, sources, toxicity and regulations

• Jaison Jeevanandam,
• Ahmed Barhoum,
• Yen S. Chan,
• Alain Dufresne and
• Michael K. Danquah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1050–1074, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.98

• aerosols are a different type of natural NPs formed due to water evaporation and ejection of wave-produced water droplets from seas and oceans into the atmosphere [48]. Usually, the size of these salt aerosols ranges from 100 nm to few micrometers, and are formed via temperature change and evaporation

Facile chemical routes to mesoporous silver substrates for SERS analysis

• Elina A. Tastekova,
• Alexander Y. Polyakov,
• Anastasia E. Goldt,
• Alexander V. Sidorov,
• Alexandra A. Oshmyanskaya,
• Irina V. Sukhorukova,
• Dmitry V. Shtansky,
• Wolgang Grünert and
• Anastasia V. Grigorieva

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 880–889, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.82

• spectroscopy of rhodamine 6G (R6G) was performed using 5 μL droplets and the concentration range of the analyte was 10−8–10−6 M. The corresponding Raman spectra for R6G deposited onto pristine silver oxide samples contained no signal from the model analyte but only noisy background, indicating luminescence

• source Specs XRC 1000, UHV chamber up to 10−6 mbar, and energy analyzer power PS-EA10N. For the sample preparation, a droplet of the colloid, preconcentrated by centrifugation, was deposited onto the carbon substrate and then dried in ambient air. To additionally concentrate the sample, ten droplets of

• up to 2.5 μm) with a 50× objective lens. The diffraction grating was 2400 lines/mm, and the CCD camera had 1024 × 256 pixels. A standard (100) single crystalline silicon substrate was used for calibration. The analyte droplets (about 1–2 μL) were placed on the substrate and measured within ten

Optical orientation of nematic liquid crystal droplets via photoisomerization of an azodendrimer dopant

• Sergey A. Shvetsov,
• Alexander V. Emelyanenko,
• Natalia I. Boiko,
• Alexander S. Zolot'ko,
• Yan-Song Zhang,
• Jui-Hsiang Liu and
• Alexei R. Khokhlov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 870–879, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.81

• , Taiwan 10.3762/bjnano.9.81 Abstract Two sequential transformations of the orientational structure in nematic liquid crystal droplets containing a dendrimer additive (nanosized macromolecules with light-absorbing azobenzene terminal moieties) under light irradiation in the UV–blue spectral range were

• rearrangement of their azobenzene moieties, which is the key point in the explanation of the observed effects. Keywords: dendrimer; droplets; nematic liquid crystal; orientational transition; photo-orientation; Introduction Azobenzene compounds represent a very convenient tool for the development of

• structure with two boojum defects (Figure 1a). As shown in [28], an azodendrimer additive incorporated into NLC droplets initiates the formation of homeotropic boundary conditions, at which the director orientation of the NLC droplets is radial (Figure 1b). It was assumed that the molecular branches of the

Noble metal-modified titania with visible-light activity for the decomposition of microorganisms

• Maya Endo,
• Zhishun Wei,
• Kunlei Wang,
• Baris Karabiyik,
• Kenta Yoshiiri,
• Paulina Rokicka,
• Bunsho Ohtani,
• Agata Markowska-Szczupak and
• Ewa Kowalska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 829–841, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.77

• ± S. D.), and (bottom) representative photograph of P. chrysogenum cultivated for four days under fluorescent-light irradiation. Arrowheads indicate the droplets. Sporulation after five days of growth of P. chrysogenum (top) and A. melleus (bottom) under vis light (left) and in the dark (right

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

• sessile drop method. The DS and VS of the hindwings were fixed on glass slides with AB glue. The volume of the water droplets was 0.05 μL. Results Microtrichia on the hindwing surface Images of unfolding of the whole hindwing were captured using a stereomicroscope (Figure 2a), and a picture was generated

Facile phase transfer of gold nanorods and nanospheres stabilized with block copolymers

• Yaroslav I. Derikov,
• Georgiy A. Shandryuk,
• Raisa V. Talroze,
• Alexander A. Ezhov and
• Yaroslav V. Kudryavtsev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 616–627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.58

• on a transmission electron microscope LEO912 AB OMEGA (Carl Zeiss, Germany) operating at 100 kV. Samples were prepared by drying the sol droplets placed on copper grids coated by Formvar™ film. SAED patterns were obtained at accelerated voltage of 100 kV and drawtube length of 290 mm. Both SAED

Ultralight super-hydrophobic carbon aerogels based on cellulose nanofibers/poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide (CNFs/PVA/GO) for highly effective oil–water separation

• Zhaoyang Xu,
• Huan Zhou,
• Sicong Tan,
• Xiangdong Jiang,
• Weibing Wu,
• Jiangtao Shi and
• Peng Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 508–519, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.49

• ) of the carbon aerogels was obtained using an optical contact angle meter (OCA, Data Physics) with 4 μL water droplets. Raman spectra results were measured using a DXR Raman spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific, USA). Thermal stability measurements were measured using a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA

Engineering of oriented carbon nanotubes in composite materials

• Razieh Beigmoradi,
• Abdolreza Samimi and
• Davod Mohebbi-Kalhori

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 415–435, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.41

• perpendicular to the substrate so that they form a completely continuous sheet, resulting in a very elastic structure [93]. Then this elastic sheet is placed on a mandrel and small droplets of solution are deposited by spraying a dilute solution of a polymer on the CNT sheet during controlled rotation of the

• deposited drop-by-drop on a substrate and an inert gas, with a linear velocity of approximately 10 cm/s, and flows along the substrate simultaneously. The gas flow concurrently spreads the droplets and also orients the CNTs in the direction of the gas flow (Figure 13). This simple method can automatically

• uniform electric field. This method has some limitations as the particles must be charged. DEP is also a phenomenon related to electrophoresis but with some important differences. It uses a nonuniform electric field to enforce uncharged particles to move. In this method, small droplets of a CNT suspension

Temperature-tunable lasing from dye-doped chiral microdroplets encapsulated in a thin polymeric film

• Gia Petriashvili,
• Mauro Daniel Luigi Bruno,
• Maria Penelope De Santo and
• Riccardo Barberi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 379–383, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.37

• 87036, Italy 10.3762/bjnano.9.37 Abstract In the last decade, much interest has grown around the possibility to use liquid-crystal droplets as optical microcavities and lasers. In particular, 3D laser emission from dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals confined inside microdroplets paves the way for

• nm for a temperature variation of 18 °C. The tuning proves that, even if the droplets are embedded in a polymeric matrix, the liquid crystalline structure is fluid enough to allow the dissolution of more chiral dopant inside the nematic liquid crystal, increasing the winding of the cholesteric helix

• the coalescence of droplets and to induce the planar alignment of the liquid-crystal molecules at the interface. Inside the droplets, the cholesteric helices arrange in a radial configuration, with the cholesteric layers bent in concentric spherical surfaces. In order to study laser emission from

Review: Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based nanoelectromechanical switches – materials solutions and operational conditions

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Jelena Kosmaca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Jana Andzane and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 271–300, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.29

Al₂O₃/TiO₂ inverse opals from electrosprayed self-assembled templates

• Arnau Coll,
• Sandra Bermejo,
• David Hernández and
• Luís Castañer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 216–223, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.23

• shape, a so-called Taylor cone [44]. At the tip of the Taylor cone, a small jet is formed that breaks into fine droplets. During this first phase, the droplets travel towards the substrate and land on top of it. At this point, some liquid is left on the substrate even after the infusion pump is switched

Liquid-crystalline nanoarchitectures for tissue engineering

• Baeckkyoung Sung and
• Min-Ho Kim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 205–215, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.22

• cholesteric droplets of concentrated suspensions of α-chitin and chitosan have been reported [45], and nematic order was also confirmed in the solutions of collagen type IV [46]. Similarly, the cholesteric phase behavior of cellulose fibrils is well established. For all these cases, the isotropic–nematic