Hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO quantum dot/KNb₃O₈ nanosheet photocatalysts for reducing carbon dioxide to methanol

• Xiao Shao,
• Weiyue Xin and
• Xiaohong Yin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2264–2270, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.226

• the nanosheets, the emission intensity evidently decreased, which indicates that the photogenerated charge carriers are efficiently separated and the lifetime of free carriers is expected to be prolonged. In addition, heterostructures act as an excellent electron transport platform to facilitate the

High-stress study of bioinspired multifunctional PEDOT:PSS/nanoclay nanocomposites using AFM, SEM and numerical simulation

• Alfredo J. Diaz,
• Hanaul Noh,
• Tobias Meier and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2069–2082, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.207

• increases and decreases in conductivity can occur for the Laponite RD composites. We offer a possible mechanism to explain the changes in conductivity by modeling the coating as a 1-dimensional multibarrier potential for electron transport, and show that conductivity can change when the separation between

Spin-dependent transport and functional design in organic ferromagnetic devices

• Guichao Hu,
• Shijie Xie,
• Chuankui Wang and
• Carsten Timm

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1919–1931, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.192

• first introduces our theory for spin-dependent electron transport through organic ferromagnetic devices, which combines an extended Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model with the Green’s function method. The effects of the intrinsic interactions in the organic ferromagnets, including strong electron–lattice

• organic magnetic devices with one ferromagnetic and one nonmagnetic electrode. Wang et al. [27][28] have performed theoretical studies of electron transport in OFs and have proposed spin–charge separation and spin filtering. π-Conjugated OFs with spin radicals are ideal materials for device design since

• the π-orbitals are available for electron transport. The pursuit of novel effects based on the intrinsic properties of the OFs is one of our aims. Prior to that, the role of the following interactions needs to be clarified: First, the coupling between the spins of conducting π-electrons and the

Spin-chemistry concepts for spintronics scientists

• Konstantin L. Ivanov,
• Alexander Wagenpfahl,
• Carsten Deibel and
• Jörg Matysik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1427–1445, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.143

• to have an impact on the spin-dependent electron transport due to the hyperfine interaction, ultimately the opposite process may become possible: storing electronic spin information in the nuclear spin.” Despite that we want to describe the basic CIDNP theory, based on the classical RPM [1][3] with

Fabrication of hierarchically porous TiO₂ nanofibers by microemulsion electrospinning and their application as anode material for lithium-ion batteries

• Jin Zhang,
• Yibing Cai,
• Xuebin Hou,
• Xiaofei Song,
• Pengfei Lv,
• Huimin Zhou and
• Qufu Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1297–1306, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.131

• and nanorods are considered to be promising electrode materials for excellent lithium-ion battery performance. This is partly because of their small size enabling fast electron transport and decreasing retardation at the interface [21][22]. Electrospinning, a simple and versatile method, has been

ZnO nanoparticles sensitized by CuInZn_xS_2+x quantum dots as highly efficient solar light driven photocatalysts

• Florian Donat,
• Serge Corbel,
• Halima Alem,
• Steve Pontvianne,
• Lavinia Balan,
• Ghouti Medjahdi and
• Raphaël Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1080–1093, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.110

• complete evaporation of the solvent. Next, the ZnO/ZCIS powder was heated at high temperature to decompose the DDT ligand covering ZCIS QDs and create a heterojunction between ZnO and ZCIS QDs that facilitates the electron transport process. In preliminary experiments, we varied the amount of ZCIS QDs

3D Nanoprinting via laser-assisted electron beam induced deposition: growth kinetics, enhanced purity, and electrical resistivity

• Brett B. Lewis,
• Robert Winkler,
• Xiahan Sang,
• Pushpa R. Pudasaini,
• Michael G. Stanford,
• Harald Plank,
• Raymond R. Unocic,
• Jason D. Fowlkes and
• Philip D. Rack

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 801–812, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.83

• deposits, Pt grain coarsening and a decrease in resistivity are observed at higher dwell times/higher segment angles. The 3D nanostructures maintain high fidelity during laser irradiation and realize a 100-fold decrease in resistivity when compared to standard EBID. This improvement in electron transport

Synthesis of graphene–transition metal oxide hybrid nanoparticles and their application in various fields

• Arpita Jana,
• Elke Scheer and
• Sebastian Polarz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 688–714, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.74

• of the refractive index and interplay of photon and electron transport. Kumar Manga et al. have prepared multilayer thin films by a self-assembled layer-by-layer technique which consists of alternating titania (Ti0.91O2) and GO nanosheets. The layer materials are spatially phase segregated to

• + acts as a bridge, connecting GO sheets and introducing new energy levels along the electron transport pathway thereby opening up possible conduction channels [216]. Singh et al. reported a bipolar, resistive switching device incorporating a copper oxide and multilayer graphene hybrid where the

Copper atomic-scale transistors

• Fangqing Xie,
• Maryna N. Kavalenka,
• Moritz Röger,
• Daniel Albrecht,
• Hendrik Hölscher,
• Jürgen Leuthold and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 530–538, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.57

• atomic-scale transistor with a copper quantum point contact as switching block. The fabrication and electron-transport properties of metallic point contacts have been investigated both experimentally and theoretically [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. The

Performance of natural-dye-sensitized solar cells by ZnO nanorod and nanowall enhanced photoelectrodes

• Saif Saadaoui,
• Mohamed Aziz Ben Youssef,
• Moufida Ben Karoui,
• Rached Gharbi,
• Emanuele Smecca,
• Vincenzina Strano,
• Salvo Mirabella,
• Alessandra Alberti and
• Rosaria A. Puglisi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 287–295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.31

• vertical length is about 1000 nm. Besides, the shape is arranged in a more vertical orientation as compared to the nanowalls without the TiO2 blocking layer. The main idea is to cover the ZnO NWs with a thin layer of TiO2 (about 150 nm of thickness), which enhances the electron transport by exploiting the

Performance of colloidal CdS sensitized solar cells with ZnO nanorods/nanoparticles

• Anurag Roy,
• Partha Pratim Das,
• Mukta Tathavadekar,
• Sumita Das and
• Parukuttyamma Sujatha Devi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 210–221, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.23

• 42.6° (inset: Figure 8c) which strongly supports a rod-oriented film surface. The elemental mapping along with line scale mapping further confirms the homogeneous distribution of CdS throughout the ZnO-R+P surface, as illustrated in Figure 8d. An overall mechanism of electron transport in colloidal CdS

• ) are expected to favor a direct conduction pathway for rapid electron transport. In the case of ZnO-R+P based films, the higher CdS loading property of ZnO-P and the superior one-dimensional nature of ZnO-R has together enhanced the overall QDSSC performance compared to their individual systems. In

Nanocrystalline TiO₂/SnO₂ heterostructures for gas sensing

• Barbara Lyson-Sypien,
• Anna Kusior,
• Mieczylaw Rekas,
• Jan Zukrowski,
• Marta Gajewska,
• Katarzyna Michalow-Mauke,
• Thomas Graule,
• Marta Radecka and
• Katarzyna Zakrzewska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 108–122, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.12

• appropriate electronic configuration because both conduction (CB) and valence (VB) band edges of TiO2 are above those of SnO2 as shown in Figure 1a. The potential difference that is formed when TiO2 and SnO2 grains come to contact facilitates electron transport from TiO2 to SnO2 thus promoting oxygen

Zigzag phosphorene nanoribbons: one-dimensional resonant channels in two-dimensional atomic crystals

• Carlos. J. Páez,
• Dario. A. Bahamon,
• Ana L. C. Pereira and
• Peter. A. Schulz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1983–1990, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.189

• different. First, edge states in zigzag graphene nanoribbons are sublattice polarized, so one single edge do not contribute to the electron transport properties. The graphene edge states channel originates from the overlapping of edge states on opposite edges [40], contrary to what we observe here where a

Monolayer graphene/SiC Schottky barrier diodes with improved barrier height uniformity as a sensing platform for the detection of heavy metals

• Ivan Shtepliuk,
• Jens Eriksson,
• Volodymyr Khranovskyy,
• Tihomir Iakimov,
• Anita Lloyd Spetz and
• Rositsa Yakimova

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1800–1814, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.173

• ). Theoretical approach Analysis of diode characteristics Assuming that the electron transport through the graphene/4H-SiC vertical structure is dominated by thermionic emission, one can write the following Richardson relation between the applied voltage and the current [52]: where IS is the zero-bias saturation

Role of RGO support and irradiation source on the photocatalytic activity of CdS–ZnO semiconductor nanostructures

• Suneel Kumar,
• Rahul Sharma,
• Vipul Sharma,
• Gurunarayanan Harith,
• Vaidyanathan Sivakumar and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1684–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.161

• could be attributed to the presence of RGO, which has a very good dye adsorption and fast electron transport ability [70][71]. The enhanced activity under natural sun light could be attributed to the combined activity of both CdS and ZnO, wherein CdS absorbs in the visible region and ZnO absorbs in the

Nanostructured germanium deposited on heated substrates with enhanced photoelectric properties

• Ionel Stavarache,
• Valentin Adrian Maraloiu,
• Petronela Prepelita and
• Gheorghe Iordache

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1492–1500, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.142

• darkness, the current behavior of the Al/n-Si/Ge:SiO2/ITO structure (schematically presented in Figure 5) is determined by the electrons tunneling from the ITO top electrode into the Ge-nps located in the SiO2 oxide layer and the electron transport in Ge:SiO2 film by a tunneling mechanism between

Reasons and remedies for the agglomeration of multilayered graphene and carbon nanotubes in polymers

• Rasheed Atif and
• Fawad Inam

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1174–1196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.109

• , the nanotube exhibits electron transport properties of a metal, while it behaves as a semiconductor if above condition is not satisfied. The semiconducting CNTs have varying bandgaps [36]. The bandgap for semi-conducting CNT is inversely proportional to the diameter of nanotube. The values of about

Reorientation of single-wall carbon nanotubes in negative anisotropy liquid crystals by an electric field

• Amanda García-García,
• Ricardo Vergaz,
• José F. Algorri,
• Gianluigi Zito,
• Teresa Cacace,
• Antigone Marino,
• José M. Otón and
• Morten A. Geday

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 825–833, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.74

• could be caused by SWCNTs that do not recover their original planar orientation. As these SWCNTs are in a position perpendicular to the contacts, the electron transport is facilitated by the longitudinal axis. Threshold voltage In order to determine a potential threshold voltage for the SWCNT switching

Thermo-voltage measurements of atomic contacts at low temperature

• Ayelet Ofarim,
• Bastian Kopp,
• Thomas Möller,
• León Martin,
• Johannes Boneberg,
• Paul Leiderer and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 767–775, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.68

• changes from hole to electron transport, when the number of thiophene dioxide monomers in the molecular backbone increases. A very elegant method for simultaneous measurements of the conductance and the thermopower has recently been presented by Kim et al. who create an oscillating temperature difference

Gold nanoparticles covalently assembled onto vesicle structures as possible biosensing platform

• M. Fátima Barroso,
• M. Alejandra Luna,
• Juan S. Flores Tabares,
• Cristina Delerue-Matos,
• N. Mariano Correa,
• Fernando Moyano and
• Patricia G. Molina

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 655–663, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.58

• surface was modified with LUVs formed at different SH/DOPC ratios, a decrease of the peak intensity of [Fe(CN)6]4− and a displacement of the peak potentials (oxidation and reduction) was observed (Figure 5b). This behaviour can be explained by invoking the resistance to the electron transport generated by

Charge and heat transport in soft nanosystems in the presence of time-dependent perturbations

• Alberto Nocera,
• Carmine Antonio Perroni,
• Vincenzo Marigliano Ramaglia and
• Vittorio Cataudella

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 439–464, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.39

• the agreement between the two approaches is still good. Actually, the exact approach at low molecule occupation slightly favors a small transfer of spectral weight at high frequency. In any case, the strong similarities in the spectral function will point out to analogous behaviours of electron

• transport properties within the two approaches. In conclusion, we can say that the semiclassical adiabatic approach correctly describes the system down to quite low temperatures. In the linear response regime, without time perturbations, the spectral function allows one to derive all the Green’s functions

Rigid multipodal platforms for metal surfaces

• Michal Valášek,
• Marcin Lindner and
• Marcel Mayor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 374–405, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.34

• motivated in the 1970s from a rather theoretical point of view by Kuhn and Möbius [1] and later by Aviram and Ratner [2], tries to get molecules wired and explore their potential use as electronic devices, logic gates or sensing entities [3][4][5]. The understanding of the fundamentals of electron transport

• mobility of the molecules and the influence of the additional alkyl chains led to an increase of surface coverage, and improve the self-assembly process. But these long alkyl chains are forming an insulating adlayer that reduces the electron transport between the metal electrodes, what diminish their

• resistance when small voltage biases are applied, which makes selenol a better anchoring group with a well-defined electronic coupling and faster electron transport to gold electrodes than thiol for further elaboration toward single-molecule devices. These results are consistent with the trends reported

Molecular machines operating on the nanoscale: from classical to quantum

• Igor Goychuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 328–350, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.31

• a quantum prefactor, where Vtun is the tunneling coupling, and λ is the reorganization energy of the medium. The energy released in the electron transport is used to pump protons against their electrochemical gradient, Δμp, which corresponds to 2πfL within the previous model. Hence, R = Δμp/|Δμ|. Of

Molecular machines and devices

• Jan van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 310–311, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.29

• machines. Molecular electronics is currently being developed mostly at the interface between organic chemistry and nanophysics, leaning strongly towards the fundamental understanding of electron transport at the smallest scale and applications in nanoelectronics. The second topic, one-dimensional

• in biology. Spiros Skourtis introduced the audience to the remarkable discovery of electron transport along micrometer long biomolecular wires, so-called pilli, growing as extracellular appendages from the surface of certain bacteria. The present understanding of the electron-conduction mechanism is

• experimental evidence is presented. The progress in theory and experiment on single-molecule electron transport can be judged from many contributions in this volume. On the other hand, some subjects are not as well-covered, including electron transport in biomolecules and one-dimensional conductors. This is

Effects of electronic coupling and electrostatic potential on charge transport in carbon-based molecular electronic junctions

• Richard L. McCreery

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 32–46, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.4

• difficult to calculate accurately, it does provide a basis for the “vacuum level shift” observed in many experiments, including transport and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy of molecular layers on conductors. Keywords: molecular junction electron transport density functional theory molecular devices

• striking similarity to experimental results from a variety of laboratories and paradigms [1][5][31][53]. Electron transport across thin organic layers often decays exponentially with layer thickness, with an “attenuation length (β)" equal to the slope of a plot of the natural log of transport rate vs layer

• attributed to I. M. Koltoff: “theory guides, experiment decides”. The purpose of the current paper is to identify some of the “guides” that apply to how molecular structure affects electron transport in carbon-based molecular electronic devices. With that objective in mind, several observations are available