Electrostatically actuated encased cantilevers

• Benoit X. E. Desbiolles,
• Gabriela Furlan,
• Adam M. Schwartzberg,
• Paul D. Ashby and
• Dominik Ziegler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1381–1389, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.130

• resonances of the chip, chip holder, or dither piezo [1] along with modes of fluid vibration when working in liquids [2]. The problem is accentuated at high frequencies when operating in high-viscosity liquids. A user can easily select the wrong peak resulting in increased tip–sample interaction forces or

• fluid. Magnetic excitation [13][14][15] or photothermal excitation [16][17][18][19] are more common in liquids, but require specialized instruments. Although frequently applied in microelectromechanical systems, electrostatic actuation is rarely used in scanning probe force microscopy. Reliable

• ≈ 90 μm) with a stiffness of k = 4 N·m−1 and a resonance frequency of f0 = 144.525 kHz and Qair = 36.5 is used. After immersion in water the quality factor remained high Qwater = 27.4, which enables high-resolution imaging with small interaction forces in liquids. Moreover, the clean electrostatic

Imaging of viscoelastic soft matter with small indentation using higher eigenmodes in single-eigenmode amplitude-modulation atomic force microscopy

• Miead Nikfarjam,
• Enrique A. López-Guerra,
• Santiago D. Solares and
• Babak Eslami

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1116–1122, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.103

• the deformation-rate-dependence of viscoelastic materials. We encourage further research in this area, especially in liquids, where the softest (biological) samples find their native environment. Generalized Maxwell or Wiechert mechanical model diagram representing the relationship between stress and

A simple extension of the commonly used fitting equation for oscillatory structural forces in case of silica nanoparticle suspensions

• Sebastian Schön and
• Regine von Klitzing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1095–1107, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.101

• observed in molecular liquids [1][2], but also in complex fluids such as liquid crystals [22][23], micellar or polyelectrolyte solutions [3][24][25][26][27][28][29] and particle suspensions [19][30][31][32][33]. Recent studies showed that for colloidal suspensions of charged silica nanoparticles the period

• Equation 2, is dominated by the parameter B. As mentioned already, the superposition of oscillatory structural forces and an additional repulsive term has been investigated before. The group of Perkin investigated ionic liquids in polar solvents [57][58]. In the latter using the same type of generic

Bioinspired self-healing materials: lessons from nature

• Joseph C. Cremaldi and
• Bharat Bhushan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 907–935, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.85

• of the exterior of a plant is the top priority, so the cells at the wound site seek to close off access to the plant interior. The lack of blood or hemolymph removes the need for clotting to prevent any loss of liquids, so the cells at the wound use hypertrophy (increase in cell size) and/or

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

• directly after the deposition and by in-flight oxidation prior the deposition on substrates. The annealing favours partial embedding of the NPs into polymer films thus ensuring a high resistance against wash-out in procedures involving liquids. Controlling the deposition time gives a possibility to tune

Heavy-metal detectors based on modified ferrite nanoparticles

• Urszula Klekotka,
• Ewelina Wińska,
• Elżbieta Zambrzycka-Szelewa,
• Dariusz Satuła and
• Beata Kalska-Szostko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 762–770, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.69

• ions from liquids, aqueous model solutions were prepared. The solutions and particles were analyzed by IR spectroscopy, EDX and AAS measurements after the tests. For this purpose, approx. 8 mg of surface-modified nanoparticles were added to a 0.1 M aqueous solution of Pb2+, Cu2+ and Cd2+. This mixture

• . Therefore, ferrite nanoparticles were added to the aqueous heavy-metal solutions and stirred. The liquids were separated from the solid particles, which were dried at room temperature. Powdered samples after the adsorption experiment were examined by EDX and the results are given in Figure 7. It can be seen

Cyclodextrin-assisted synthesis of tailored mesoporous silica nanoparticles

• Fuat Topuz and
• Tamer Uyar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 693–703, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.64

• change of MSNs from rods to platelets with depending on the concentration of heptane and NH4F [15]. MSNs were also synthesized in ellipsoidal and tubular forms using room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) as pore-templates [16]. Recently, single-walled carbon nanotube functionalized MSNs with grape-like

Fabrication and photoactivity of ionic liquid–TiO₂ structures for efficient visible-light-induced photocatalytic decomposition of organic pollutants in aqueous phase

• Anna Gołąbiewska,
• Marta Paszkiewicz-Gawron,
• Aleksandra Sadzińska,
• Wojciech Lisowski,
• Ewelina Grabowska,
• Adriana Zaleska-Medynska and
• Justyna Łuczak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 580–590, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.54

• at the surface of the IL–TiO2 material under visible-light illumination, and is responsible for the effective phenol degradation. Keywords: heterogeneous photocatalysis; ionic liquids; TiO2; visible light catalysis; Introduction The development of heterogeneous photocatalysis to degrade organic

• achieve visible-light-activated photocatalysts. Another, actually surprising, way to improve the efficiency of solar-driven photocatalysis appeared in an application of ionic liquids (ILs) for TiO2 preparation [12][13][14]. Sometimes referred to as “solvents of the future”, ILs have induced a large and

• IL. Results and Discussion Twelve novel TiO2 photocatalysts prepared in the presence of two ionic liquids containing different alkyl chain lengths in the imidazolium cation ([ODMIM][Cl] and [TDMIM][Cl]) were obtained by the solvothermal method. All samples were prepared in six different molar ratios

Facile synthesis of ZnFe₂O₄ photocatalysts for decolourization of organic dyes under solar irradiation

• Arjun Behera,
• Debasmita Kandi,
• Sanjit Manohar Majhi,
• Satyabadi Martha and
• Kulamani Parida

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 436–446, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.42

• , hydrothermal [15][16][17] solid-state combustion, sol–gel, co-precipitation, mechanochemical [18] and microwave-hydrothermal assisted ionic liquids have been reported for the synthesis of metal ferrite [10][13][19]. Recently, Sharma et al. reported the synthesis of ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles by an urea combustion

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

• of CNTs. The mesoscopic size scale of scattering techniques has been used to reveal information about the alignment of CNTs in CNT fibers [131], the average diameter and orientation of CNTs grown on substrates [132][133], dispersion of CNTs in liquids [134], and the sorting of CNTs in CNT bundles

Review on optofluidic microreactors for artificial photosynthesis

• Xiaowen Huang,
• Jianchun Wang,
• Tenghao Li,
• Jianmei Wang,
• Min Xu,
• Weixing Yu,
• Abdel El Abed and
• Xuming Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 30–41, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.5

• materials with high energy efficiency while circumventing all the problems. Optofluidic technology has recently exploded with new concepts to enable fine control of light and liquids in microscale structures [39][40][41]. In fact, NPS is naturally an optofluidic system as it is carried out in microscale

L-Lysine-grafted graphene oxide as an effective adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue and metal ions

• Yan Yan,
• Jie Li,
• Fangbei Kong,
• Kuankuan Jia,
• Shiyu He and
• Baorong Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2680–2688, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.268

• collected at different time points (5–250 min), and then centrifuged at 12,000 rpm for 10 min. The liquids were analyzed for MB or Cu2+ concentration measurements. The obtained data in batch mode studies were used to calculate for each sample of Cu2+ or MB as follows: where qe is the equilibrium adsorption

The role of ligands in coinage-metal nanoparticles for electronics

• Ioannis Kanelidis and
• Tobias Kraus

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2625–2639, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.263

• by gold nanoparticles to create interconnected gold-nanoparticle assemblies with a homogeneous coverage and a film conductivity of 4.2 × 10−3 S/cm [118]. Cross-linking works for particles that are not prepared in liquids, too. A discontinuous film of gold was evaporated onto a mica substrate and

Interface conditions of roughness-induced superoleophilic and superoleophobic surfaces immersed in hexadecane and ethylene glycol

• Yifan Li,
• Yunlu Pan and
• Xuezeng Zhao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2504–2514, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.250

• modification for the calculation of effective slip length is presented. Preparation of surfaces and liquids For the preparation of the superoleophilic surface, multilayered composite surfaces were synthesized [29]. Soda-lime glass (CAT. NO. 7101, SAIL BRAND, China) with 1.0 mm thickness was used as substrates

• dried in air and left for 10 h. There were ten groups of samples: “a1” to “a5” with superoleophilic surfaces and “b1” to “b5” with superoleophobic surfaces. The concentration of the SiO2 suspension increased from a1 to a5 and b1 to b5, respectively. The properties of the liquids used in the experiment

• of ethylene glycol is larger than that of hexadecane as the results are related to the viscosity of the liquids given in Table 2. Slip length: The slip length is obtained from the hydrophobic forces according to Equation 1. Figure 7a shows the measured slip length as a function of the RMS roughness

Refractive index sensing and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy using silver–gold layered bimetallic plasmonic crystals

• Somi Kang,
• Sean E. Lehman,
• Matthew V. Schulmerich,
• An-Phong Le,
• Tae-woo Lee,
• Stephen K. Gray,
• Rohit Bhargava and
• Ralph G. Nuzzo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2492–2503, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.249

• acquired experimentally because the mounted PDMS flow cell is not considered in the calculation. To allow solution flow and direct contact with liquids during measurements, a closed sampling cell is required and, in such cases, presents a glass–solution interface through which the incident radiation passes

Synthesis of metal-fluoride nanoparticles supported on thermally reduced graphite oxide

• Alexa Schmitz,
• Kai Schütte,
• Vesko Ilievski,
• Juri Barthel,
• Laura Burk,
• Rolf Mülhaupt,
• Junpei Yue,
• Bernd Smarsly and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2474–2483, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.247

• 50 mA/g, including a significant interfacial charge storage contribution. The obtained nanomaterials show a good rate capacity as well (220 mAh/g and 130 mAh/g) at a current density of 200 and 500 mA/g, respectively. Keywords: ionic liquids; material synthesis; metal-fluoride nanoparticles

• nanocomposite materials in ionic liquids (ILs) to yield selectively phase-pure metal-fluoride nanoparticles (MFx-NPs) supported on the TRGO as stable colloids (Scheme 1). The used TRGO starting materials differed in the temperatures at which they were reduced (300, 400 or 750 °C) and in the presence of sulfur

Surfactant-induced enhancement of droplet adhesion in superhydrophobic soybean (Glycine max L.) leaves

• Oliver Hagedorn,
• Ingo Fleute-Schlachter,
• Hans Georg Mainx,
• Viktoria Zeisler-Diehl and
• Kerstin Koch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2345–2356, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.234

• roll off. Droplet adhesion can be improved by adding adjuvants, such as surfactants. Surfactants enhance the leaf surface wettability by reduction of the surface tension of applied liquids. Surfactants are amphiphilic molecules with a nonpolar, hydrophobic structural group together with a hydrophilic

A comparative study of the nanoscale and macroscale tribological attributes of alumina and stainless steel surfaces immersed in aqueous suspensions of positively or negatively charged nanodiamonds

• Colin K. Curtis,
• Antonin Marek,
• Alex I. Smirnov and
• Jacqueline Krim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2045–2059, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.205

• of the flow-cell apparatus, as evidenced by the flatness in the frequency during initial and final water exposures. All liquids were kept adjacent to one another on the lab bench during the experiment to minimize temperature differences between them. A LabView (National Instruments, Austin, TX) PC

Imidazolium-based ionic liquids used as additives in the nanolubrication of silicon surfaces

• Patrícia M. Amorim,
• Ana M. Ferraria,
• Rogério Colaço,
• Luís C. Branco and
• Benilde Saramago

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1961–1971, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.197

• . Although the use of ionic liquids (ILs) as additives to base oils in the lubrication of steel/steel or other types of metal/ metal tribological pairs has been investigated, the number of studies involving Si is very low. In this work, we tested imidazolium-based ILs as additives to the base oil

• stable surface layer, which hinders the contact between the sliding surfaces. Keywords: additives; ionic liquids; lubricants; nanotribology; silicon; Introduction The use of ILs as neat lubricants was first proposed by Ye et al. in 2001 [1]. Since then, many investigations confirmed the good

• adhesion and friction problems, the so-called stiction. ILs stand up as promising lubricants for this type of systems, all the more so since ILs are conductive liquids, leading to the minimization of the contact resistance between sliding surfaces, which is required for various electrical applications

Growth and characterization of textured well-faceted ZnO on planar Si(100), planar Si(111), and textured Si(100) substrates for solar cell applications

• Chin-Yi Tsai,
• Jyong-Di Lai,
• Shih-Wei Feng,
• Chien-Jung Huang,
• Chien-Hsun Chen,
• Fann-Wei Yang,
• Hsiang-Chen Wang and
• Li-Wei Tu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1939–1945, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.194

• (101) plane in the hexagonal lattice [12]. Furthermore, hexagonal and pyramidal ZnO composed of the (101) and (001) planes has been synthesized in ionic liquids or obtained on Si(111) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering [13][14]. Nevertheless, the growth of well-faceted pyramidal-like ZnO on silicon

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

• radical pair is termed a spin-correlated radical pair (SCRP). In liquids, where radicals can diffuse, radical pairs are usually classified as geminate pairs (G-pairs), that is, pairs of radicals born in the same chemical event, or radical pairs formed upon encounters of free radicals in the solvent bulk

• interactions of spins with the external field B0 (hereafter, the static field directed parallel to the z-axis), HFC and electronic exchange interaction. For simplicity, we consider only the case of isotropic liquids. In this situation the Hamiltonian takes the form (here written in the angular frequency units

• spectrum, one should add the corresponding terms to the Hamiltonian. Such terms are generally time-dependent but typically vanish in the MW-rotating frame of reference. The nuclear Zeeman interaction is omitted in the expression for the Hamiltonian because in liquids it is usually irrelevant. The reason is

A top-down approach for fabricating three-dimensional closed hollow nanostructures with permeable thin metal walls

• Carlos Angulo Barrios and
• Víctor Canalejas-Tejero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1231–1237, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.124

• indicates that the resonance must be sensitive to refractive index changes of the superstrate. This was corroborated by immersing the nanostructure array in different liquids. Figure 5a shows the measured spectral reflectance of a hollow nanopillar array in different top cladding media: air, methanol

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of cell lysates mixed with silver nanoparticles for tumor classification

• Mohamed Hassoun,
• Iwan W.Schie,
• Tatiana Tolstik,
• Sarmiza E. Stanca,
• Christoph Krafft and
• Juergen Popp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1183–1190, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.120

• overcome by signal-enhancement approaches including surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), resonance Raman scattering, coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering and stimulated Raman scattering [3]. For the analysis of liquids, SERS is the most frequently applied approach and has been used for analyte

Measuring adhesion on rough surfaces using atomic force microscopy with a liquid probe

• Juan V. Escobar,
• Cristina Garza and
• Rolando Castillo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 813–825, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.84

• instrument and a procedure to measure forces between a liquid drop and flat surfaces when the adhesion is too large to be measured with an AFM [10]. Indeed, in general, adhesion between liquids and solids can be high. However, interactions between a liquid probe and supersolvophobic or highly patterned

• location distribution. The topological differences between the two surfaces are reflected in the force of adhesion results we obtain, suggesting it is possible to implement this method as a tool to characterize the interaction between liquids and rough surfaces. This article is organized as follows: In the

• experiments of cylindrical nanofibers dipped in liquids of different γ, where γ is the liquid–vapor surface tension [36]. For contact angles above 50–60°, the spring constants are almost insensible to the contact angle, and although these authors did not explore angles corresponding to hydrophobic surfaces

First examples of organosilica-based ionogels: synthesis and electrochemical behavior

• Andreas Taubert,
• Ruben Löbbicke,
• Barbara Kirchner and
• Fabrice Leroux

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 736–751, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.77

• : ionic liquids; ionogels; organosilica; proton conductivity; Introduction Ionic liquids (ILs), that is, substances solely composed of ionic species have been studied for virtually every application from organic synthesis to lubrication and battery technology [1][2][3][4]. A particularly promising field