Electromigration-induced directional steps towards the formation of single atomic Ag contacts

• Atasi Chatterjee,
• Christoph Tegenkamp and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 680–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.55

• structures and at grain boundaries. Nevertheless, we showed recently that it can be used reliably for the formation of single atomic point contacts after careful pre-structuring of the initial Ag nanostructures. The process of formation of nanocontacts by EM down to a single-atom point contact was

• study, the thinning mechanism of EM at grain boundaries correlated with electrical conductance histograms adds additional information to the existing studies just mentioned. The understanding of the origin of conductance histogram peaks can be deepened by searching for correlations between conductance

• growth behavior so that they are nanocrystalline with an average grain size between 30 and 50 nm. These grain boundaries turned out to be the main source of lateral resistance [27]. Therefore, the EM-induced material transport is mainly expected to take place at these boundaries. EM at grain boundaries

Recent progress in perovskite solar cells: the perovskite layer

• Xianfeng Dai,
• Ke Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 51–60, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.5

• as shown in Figure 4d–g. The 2D perovskite vertically passivates the grain boundaries of the resulting 3D perovskite film. The photo-generated charge-carrier localization is minimized in the low-dimensional perovskite. Hence, the resulting phase pure 2D perovskite sections lead to an enhancement of

Synthesis and acetone sensing properties of ZnFe₂O₄/rGO gas sensors

• Kaidi Wu,
• Yifan Luo,
• Ying Li and
• Chao Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2516–2526, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.242

• surface of ZnFe2O4 and react with the adsorbed O2− and O− anions at the ZnFe2O4 grain boundaries. Subsequently, the electrons will be released back to the conduction band and the resistance will decrease again. The whole process can be described by Equations 2–5 [31][48]. In this work, the 0.5 wt

• will also exist a potential barrier at the grain boundaries. In Figure 11b, when air is introduced, the resistance of the sensor will decrease as a result of the construction of the depletion layers and the potential barriers at the grain boundaries (see also Equations 2–5). When acetone is introduced

Abrupt elastic-to-plastic transition in pentagonal nanowires under bending

• Sergei Vlassov,
• Magnus Mets,
• Boris Polyakov,
• Jianjun Bian,
• Leonid Dorogin and
• Vahur Zadin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2468–2476, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.237

• uniform structure hardening. Five-fold grain boundaries intersect with all possible slip systems restricting the motion of dislocations along any slip direction by the twin boundaries that extend to the center of the wire preventing the initiation of plastic deformation. This makes five-fold twinned NW

Mobility of charge carriers in self-assembled monolayers

• Zhihua Fu,
• Tatjana Ladnorg,
• Hartmut Gliemann,
• Alexander Welle,
• Asif Bashir,
• Michael Rohwerder,
• Qiang Zhang,
• Björn Schüpbach,
• Andreas Terfort and
• Christof Wöll

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2449–2458, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.235

• appropriately functionalized OSC molecules provides a suitable method to determine intrinsic mobilities of charge carriers in OSC thin films. In particular, this method is rather insensitive with regard to influence of grain boundaries and other defects, which hamper the application of conventional methods for

Semitransparent Sb₂S₃ thin film solar cells by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis for use in solar windows

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Lothar Weinhardt,
• Monika Blum,
• Clemens Heske,
• Wanli Yang,
• Ilona Oja Acik and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2396–2409, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.230

• absorber, the development of fabrication techniques to produce high quality Sb2S3 absorber layers, with few grain boundaries and intra-grain defects is essential to enable commercialization of Sb2S3-based solar cells [14][38]. The record PCE of 5.77% was achieved with a planar TiO2/Sb2S3/P3HT cell by

• charge carriers is likely impeded by numerous grain boundaries owing to the smaller grain size in thinner films. On the other end, RS is also over 10 Ω cm2 in the cells with overly thick Sb2S3 layers (150 nm), which is ascribed to the ohmic resistance of the thicker absorber. In this study, the

Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond for nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging applications

• Alberto Boretti,
• Lorenzo Rosa,
• Jonathan Blackledge and
• Stefania Castelletto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2128–2151, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.207

High-temperature resistive gas sensors based on ZnO/SiC nanocomposites

• Vadim B. Platonov,
• Marina N. Rumyantseva,
• Alexander S. Frolov,
• Alexey D. Yapryntsev and
• Alexander M. Gaskov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1537–1547, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.151

• material conductance, kB is the Boltzmann constant, the values of the activation energy Ea were calculated. For ZnO nanofibers, Ea = 0.40 ± 0.04 eV. This value lies within the error with the potential barrier at the grain boundaries eVs (the surface potential barrier energy between particles of

Energy distribution in an ensemble of nanoparticles and its consequences

• Dieter Vollath

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1452–1457, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.143

• grain boundaries, the heat capacity is increased [7]. As a second example, the transition into the superconducting state of nanocrystalline lead is discussed. For these experiments, Li et al. [8] used loosely arranged 4.5 nm particles. The transition from the normal to the superconducting state was

Selective gas detection using Mn₃O₄/WO₃ composites as a sensing layer

• Yongjiao Sun,
• Zhichao Yu,
• Wenda Wang,
• Pengwei Li,
• Gang Li,
• Wendong Zhang,
• Lin Chen,
• Serge Zhuivkov and
• Jie Hu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1423–1433, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.140

• [16]. The blue-colored precursor was first oxidized into faint-yellow-colored WO3 nanowires, and then re-crystallized to nanoparticles or nanorods of larger size with less grain boundaries in order to reduce the free energy. Furthermore, with the increase of the amount of Mn, the proportion of

Kelvin probe force microscopy of the nanoscale electrical surface potential barrier of metal/semiconductor interfaces in ambient atmosphere

• Petr Knotek,
• Tomáš Plecháček,
• Jan Smolík,
• Petr Kutálek,
• Filip Dvořák,
• Milan Vlček,
• Jiří Navrátil and
• Čestmír Drašar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1401–1411, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.138

• been observed for Si [51][52], Ti, Ni or Al [53][54][55], carbon [56] and organic–inorganic compounds [57]. We suggest, in our case, that OH− or O−/O2− ions diffuse through our polycrystalline Au layer with many defects (grain boundaries, dislocations) forced by the strong electric field (8 V/53 nm of

Direct observation of the CVD growth of monolayer MoS₂ using in situ optical spectroscopy

• Claudia Beatriz López-Posadas,
• Yaxu Wei,
• Wanfu Shen,
• Daniel Kahr,
• Michael Hohage and
• Lidong Sun

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 557–564, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.57

• nanoparticles at the grain boundaries. Furthermore, the height profile measured across the edge of the MoS2 layer reveals a layer thickness of ≈0.69 nm, which is very close to the interlayer spacing in the bulk of 2H phase MoS2. The Raman spectra recorded from each side of the substrate (Figure 1d) show the

Advanced scanning probe lithography using anatase-to-rutile transition to create localized TiO₂ nanorods

• Julian Kalb,
• Vanessa Knittel and
• Lukas Schmidt-Mende

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 412–418, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.40

• to the scratch, but tiny cracks such as the one shown in the figure appear in a distance of a few micrometers. The fracture continues in grains or grain boundaries indicating preferred breaking lines along specific crystal planes. Nanorods grow only in the scratched area, while there is no preferred

Relation between thickness, crystallite size and magnetoresistance of nanostructured La_1−xSr_xMn_yO_3±δ films for magnetic field sensors

• Rasuole Lukose,
• Valentina Plausinaitiene,
• Milita Vagner,
• Nerija Zurauskiene,
• Skirmantas Kersulis,
• Virgaudas Kubilius,
• Karolis Motiejuitis,
• Birute Knasiene,
• Voitech Stankevic,
• Zita Saltyte,
• Martynas Skapas,
• Algirdas Selskis and
• Evaldas Naujalis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 256–261, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.24

• ]. Transport and magnetoresistive properties In nanostructured manganite materials the difference in dimensions of crystallites and change of the relative amount of grain boundaries (GBs) and film composition significantly change the transport behaviour [17][21]. The decrease of electrical resistivity and the

Interaction of Te and Se interlayers with Ag or Au nanofilms in sandwich structures

• Arkadiusz Ciesielski,
• Lukasz Skowronski,
• Marek Trzcinski,
• Ewa Górecka,
• Wojciech Pacuski and
• Tomasz Szoplik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 238–246, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.22

• grain boundaries towards the surface of the metal film, Se or Te atoms can induce additional plasmonic absorption bands in the permittivity of Ag and Au. Controlling this process could allow for engineering of the optical parameters of noble metals as well as enhanced nonlinear effects [33]. Moreover

• interface, accelerate it or inhibit it. This is because of the change in the entropic contribution (ΔS) to the Gibbs free energy (ΔG = ΔH − TΔS, where T stands for temperature) of segregation. Voids at the intersection of multiple grain boundaries have a greater number of both substitutional and

• Te atoms no longer reside only in the Ag grain boundaries in the form of solute solution, but possibly also in the Ag grains, forming a nano-alloy. Moreover, after four weeks, the value of the loss function at the maximum is much lower. This implies that during the additional two weeks more Te atoms

Uniform Sb₂S₃ optical coatings by chemical spray method

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Ilona Oja Acik,
• Arvo Mere and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 198–210, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.18

• conversion efficiency of all solar absorber materials because decreasing the amount of grain boundaries likely increases charge carrier mobility [26]. The crystallite sizes of as-deposited and thermally treated Sb2S3 layers are presented in Table 2. The effect of the deposition temperature is observed in Sb

• Information File 1, Figure S2A,B, Figure S3A,B; 6-200-As-dep., Figure 3A,B; 6-210-As-dep., Figure 3C,D) cover the substrate almost entirely. Grain boundaries and larger clusters of grains have formed in layers deposited from Sb/S 1:6 solutions for 40 minutes at 210 °C (6-210-As-dep., Figure 3C,D, Figure S5C,D

• large islands to minimize Sb2S3–air interfacial free surface energy (2), and form grain boundaries during crystallization in vacuum or inert environment (3). B – Sb2S3 crystallizes into separate grains if either the deposition temperature, the deposition time or the excess of TU in Sb/S precursor molar

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

• and potential barriers in the composites due to the heterojunctions, one at the α-Fe2O3 grain boundaries and another at the interfaces of α-Fe2O3 and rGO. It appeared clear that O2 adsorption on the α-Fe2O3 grain boundaries modified the width of the α-Fe2O3 depletion layer, which conversely altered

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

• oxidized silver film was performed with a hydrogen plasma at a power of 200 W and a chamber pressure of 0.38 mbar for 20 min in order to ensure complete reduction of the silver oxide film. Oxidation of sputtered silver films with oxygen plasma yields a polycrystalline silver oxide film with distinct grain

• boundaries (Figure 6a). After reduction of the silver oxide film to silver a highly porous structure is formed (Figure 6b). At the same time the drastic increase in film thickness compared to the as-sputtered silver film is observed (Figure 6c). The measured film thickness from the cross-sectional SEM for

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

• more dense grains as compared with the films deposited at higher pressure and lower power. This results in less grain boundaries and consequently higher carrier mobility and conductivity. The SEM images also show more uniform surfaces over the film area for the samples deposited at 3 mTorr compared

Size-selected Fe₃O₄–Au hybrid nanoparticles for improved magnetism-based theranostics

• Maria V. Efremova,
• Yulia A. Nalench,
• Eirini Myrovali,
• Anastasiia S. Garanina,
• Ivan S. Grebennikov,
• Polina K. Gifer,
• Maxim A. Abakumov,
• Marina Spasova,
• Makis Angelakeris,
• Alexander G. Savchenko,
• Michael Farle,
• Natalia L. Klyachko,
• Alexander G. Majouga and
• Ulf Wiedwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2684–2699, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.251

• as partial oxidation to γ-Fe2O3, e.g., at the grain boundaries. The decrease of MS for small particles has been ascribed to these features [40][41][42] and considering the bulk MS values at 5 K (96.4 A·m2·kg−1 for magnetite) and 300 K (92.0 A·m2·kg−1 for magnetite and 76.0 A·m2·kg−1 for maghemite

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

• situated on the grain boundaries. Droplet size is a function of surface roughness Figure 4 presents the diameter distribution of micelle solution droplets for each sample. The droplets on poly-Si have a comparable size with a tight variation range of only about 5 µm. The distribution is symmetric, whereby

Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

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

• cations [126]. The presence of 2D HP favors a more homogeneous growth of FASnI3 crystals, resulting in a reduced number of grain boundaries and the suppression of the formation of Sn4+. The high quality of such FASnI3 films was evidenced by a strongly reduced background carrier density and a longer charge

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

• source electrode because charge carriers here first collide with grain boundaries to initiate atom diffusion as it can be seen by number of voids present in this electrode (Figure 2c). Electrical characterization The electrical characterization of the tunneling feedgap forming the active area of the

• -color scanning electron micrograph of the device after electromigration. The tunneling junction forms on the source electrode. The zone corresponding to the constriction has been annealed by Joule dissipation during the process, reducing the number of grain boundaries available to trigger

Synthesis of carbon nanowalls from a single-source metal-organic precursor

• André Giese,
• Sebastian Schipporeit,
• Volker Buck and
• Nicolas Wöhrl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1895–1905, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.181

• layer on the substrate, the vertical growth originates at cracks that occur at grain boundaries of the graphene that are rolling up [21]. All these works show that the substrate material can have a significant influence on the formation of the CNWs. Malesevic et al. [22] took a similar approach also

• described before that defects in initial graphene and graphite layers can lead to grain boundaries and defects that fold up and can be seen as additional nucleation sites for the growth of CNWs [21]. This model of increasing defects in the CNWs is also backed by Raman spectroscopy measurements as shown

• ratio) is higher for shorter mean wall lengths. A high intensity of the D-peak can be interpreted as high defect density in the carbon material. Since shorter walls mean more edges and smaller graphitic crystals, the defect density is higher with more carbon atoms at grain boundaries. Furthermore, the

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

• . Furthermore, when the grain size is reduced to a few nanometers the number of atoms located in the grain boundaries becomes comparable with the number of atom forming the nanocrystal [60][61]. Then the X-ray pattern is a superposition of diffractions from the crystal grains and scattering from grain

• boundaries, where a broad spectrum of interatomic distances exist. The resulting X-ray diffraction pattern appears very similar to that of an amorphous material. Additionally, from the X-ray patterns, it is observed that the relative intensity of the peaks HfO2 and Hf IHfO2/IHf decreases with increasing the