Systematic control of α-Fe₂O₃ crystal growth direction for improved electrochemical performance of lithium-ion battery anodes

• Nan Shen,
• Miriam Keppeler,
• Barbara Stiaszny,
• Holger Hain,
• Filippo Maglia and
• Madhavi Srinivasan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2032–2044, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.204

• sol−gel approaches, the hydro/solvothermal synthesis route is known to be advantageous due to the homogenous nucleation/growth process and highly crystallized products [20][21][22]. In order to develop a synthesis method with morphology control aspects, inorganic ions as well as organic reagents

• concentration in the solution is reduced, which separates nucleation and growth processes and supports high quality crystallization [27]. The complex stability is expected to decrease during synthesis with increasing temperature and pressure until the Fe3+ in complex formation can be successfully attacked by OH

A systematic study of the controlled generation of crystalline iron oxide nanoparticles on graphene using a chemical etching process

• Peter Krauß,
• Jörg Engstler and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2017–2025, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.202

• S6, Supporting Information File 1). These combined results prove a correlation between the weight percent of hydrochloric acid and the nucleation rate of iron oxide nanoparticles and indicates a particle formation involving decomposition of intermediate iron(II) hydroxide formed in the etching

Advances and challenges in the field of plasma polymer nanoparticles

• Andrei Choukourov,
• Pavel Pleskunov,
• Daniil Nikitin,
• Valerii Titov,
• Artem Shelemin,
• Mykhailo Vaidulych,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Pavel Solař,
• Jan Hanuš,
• Jaroslav Kousal,
• Ondřej Kylián,
• Danka Slavínská and
• Hynek Biederman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2002–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.200

• It has been recognized that NPs grow via a three-step process involving nucleation, coagulation and growth by accretion. The nucleation stage is often considered to be governed by negative ions [19][56][57][58][59], leading to the formation of nanometer-sized nuclei. These embryonic clusters may be

• GAS. The opposite trend of decreasing NP diameter with the discharge power is readily explained by stronger fragmentation of precursor molecules. The fragmentation results in a larger amount of free radicals that serve as nucleation centres and, under constant supply of the precursor (constant gas

• homogeneous nucleation. Simultaneously, fragmentation of organic molecules in the plasma proceeds with the formation of free radicals that subsequently recombine to create the plasma polymer phase. Remarkably, the two processes do not interfere, probably due to strong cohesive forces between metal atoms and

Fabrication of carbon nanospheres by the pyrolysis of polyacrylonitrile–poly(methyl methacrylate) core–shell composite nanoparticles

• Dafu Wei,
• Youwei Zhang and
• Jinping Fu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1897–1908, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.190

• secondary nucleation is completely inhibited during the AIBN-initiated semicontinuous seed emulsion polymerization. Thus, the PAN–PMMA core–shell structured nanoparticles can be controllably synthesized. PAN-based carbon nanospheres Preoxidized product During the preoxidation process, complicated

Synthesis and functionalization of NaGdF₄:Yb,Er@NaGdF₄ core–shell nanoparticles for possible application as multimodal contrast agents

• Dovile Baziulyte-Paulaviciene,
• Vitalijus Karabanovas,
• Marius Stasys,
• Greta Jarockyte,
• Vilius Poderys,
• Simas Sakirzanovas and
• Ricardas Rotomskis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1815–1824, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.183

• shape with an average diameter of approximately 8 nm with polydispersity index (PDI) of 1.02. The resulting core–shell nanoparticles are polydisperse and have an average diameter of ≈16 nm with PDI of 1.16. This indicates that polydispersity occurred from secondary nucleation during the shell growth

Near-infrared-responsive, superparamagnetic Au@Co nanochains

• Varadee Vittur,
• Arati G. Kolhatkar,
• Shreya Shah,
• Irene Rusakova,
• Dmitri Litvinov and
• T. Randall Lee

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1680–1687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.168

• this replacement reaction, it is likely that nucleation of the reduced Au atoms led to small Au particles that eventually grew into a thin Au shell covering the cobalt nanoparticles. At the same time, because of its extended polymeric chain structure, PVP, which was present as a colloidal stabilizer

Process-specific mechanisms of vertically oriented graphene growth in plasmas

• Subrata Ghosh,
• Shyamal R. Polaki,
• Niranjan Kumar,
• Sankarakumar Amirthapandian,
• Mohamed Kamruddin and
• Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1658–1670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.166

• transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and Raman spectroscopy. Contact angle and electrical resistance measurements of the VGNs are carried out as well. Results and Discussion Growth and optimization Case I: Influence of growth temperature We investigated the early-stage nucleation and growth of VGNs over a

• quantify the vertical growth, the growth rate is plotted as a function of the temperature in Figure 1i. This dependence can be described by the Arrhenius equation. The activation energy is calculated from this plot. The activation energy for the vertical growth is found to be 0.57 eV. Faster nucleation and

• nanostructures in plasmas are C2 and CH, as well as atomic and molecular hydrogen [26]. The rapid nucleation of nanoislands, self-organization and coalescence between them take place through direct adsorption and surface diffusion of carbon-containing species on the substrate surface [24]. Hence, the commonly

Luminescent supramolecular hydrogels from a tripeptide and nitrogen-doped carbon nanodots

• Maria C. Cringoli,
• Slavko Kralj,
• Marina Kurbasic,
• Massimo Urban and
• Silvia Marchesan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1553–1562, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.157

• rationale could also be applied to NCNDs and the tripeptide DLeu-Phe-Phe, which were evaluated for co-assembly into hydrogels following a pH trigger from alkaline to neutral. Different scenarios were envisaged: the presence of the NCNDs 1) could promote peptide self-assembly by acting as a nucleation agent

Parylene C as a versatile dielectric material for organic field-effect transistors

• Tomasz Marszalek,
• Maciej Gazicki-Lipman and
• Jacek Ulanski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1532–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.155

• obtained for Parylene C has been attributed to the surface roughness, which increases the nucleation density and leads to less ordered films. The lower film order of Parylene C is compensated by the low charge trapping at the semiconductor/dielectric interface [50] confirmed by IDS hysteresis observed for

Miniemulsion copolymerization of (meth)acrylates in the presence of functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes for reinforced coating applications

• Bertha T. Pérez-Martínez,
• Lorena Farías-Cepeda,
• Víctor M. Ovando-Medina,
• José M. Asua,
• Lucero Rosales-Marines and
• Radmila Tomovska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1328–1337, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.134

• solid phase, miniemulsion polymerization is much more versatile [27][28][29][30][31]. The characteristic feature of this process is that particle formation predominantly occurs by nucleation of the preformed miniemulsion droplets, which minimizes the changes in the system during the particle nucleation

• light on the relative importance of these effects. It can be seen that a significant secondary nucleation occurred and that the final particle size was not affected by the concentration of MWCNTs. This suggests that the number of polymer particles was controlled by the surfactant available, which was

• in the presence of various quantities of MWCNTs (0.1–1%) is presented. It can be seen that, except for the 0.1 wt % MWCNT sample, most of the particles were formed by secondary nucleation likely due to the combined effect of the presence of a highly water soluble monomer (HEMA) that promoted the

Nanotopographical control of surfaces using chemical vapor deposition processes

• Meike Koenig and
• Joerg Lahann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1250–1256, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.126

• energy of the underlying substrate using a fluorinated polymer. Minimal nucleation of monomer was found on the fluorinated spots, which led to a dense polymer coating on these sites. These techniques show great promise in the fabrication of membranes [37]. Oblique angle deposition A significant amount of

AgCl-doped CdSe quantum dots with near-IR photoluminescence

• Pavel A. Kotin,
• Sergey S. Bubenov,
• Natalia E. Mordvinova and
• Sergey G. Dorofeev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1156–1166, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.117

• nucleation energy in the presence of more AgCl precursor during synthesis. Bearing in mind the large size and fraction of EPs in the samples (Table 2), we attributed the rather narrow and intense diffraction peaks of sample AgCl_10 to the hexagonal WZ structure of these particles (Figure 1d). HRTEM images of

Preparation of thick silica coatings on carbon fibers with fine-structured silica nanotubes induced by a self-assembly process

• Benjamin Baumgärtner,
• Hendrik Möller,
• Thomas Neumann and
• Dirk Volkmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1145–1155, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.116

• acid catalyzed sol–gel process was tested by employing sodium silicate solution at pH 2 (Supporting Information File 1, Figures S1 and S2). As can be seen from these reference experiments, nucleation takes also place in the continuous phase, i.e., the fiber dispersing phase, leading to the formation of

Adsorption characteristics of Er₃N@C₈₀on W(110) and Au(111) studied via scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy

• Sebastian Schimmel,
• Zhixiang Sun,
• Danny Baumann,
• Denis Krylov,
• Nataliya Samoylova,
• Alexey Popov,
• Bernd Büchner and
• Christian Hess

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1127–1134, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.114

• , islands and inordinate aggregations on terraces were found where most likely local impurities served as nucleation points. The spatial extent of the monolayers reached sizes of several 100 × 100 nm2. The STM image of Figure 2b taken at the edge of an Er3N@C80-island illustrates that the molecules are

Stable Au–C bonds to the substrate for fullerene-based nanostructures

• Taras Chutora,
• Jesús Redondo,
• Bruno de la Torre,
• Martin Švec,
• Pavel Jelínek and
• Héctor Vázquez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1073–1079, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.109

• Shockley partial dislocations of the Au bulk [38][39]. The faulty structure of the elbow site makes it a favorable nucleation site for the functionalized molecules to bind. STM images also show the presence of dimer structures bound at the elbow sites (indicated by blue circles). We attribute these

The integration of graphene into microelectronic devices

• Guenther Ruhl,
• Sebastian Wittmann,
• Matthias Koenig and
• Daniel Neumaier

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1056–1064, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.107

• passivated (Figure 4) and was stable for a longer period of time under ambient conditions [50]. The main problem of growing Al2O3 by ALD is to obtain a continuous nucleation layer on graphene to start the deposition. To solve this problem several approaches are proposed. One solution is the deposition of a

• few nanometers thin Al layer on graphene and subsequently oxidizing it in air to generate a thin start layer for a subsequent ALD process depositing several tens of nanometers of Al2O3 [50]. Further there is an adapted nucleation process using water and trimethylaluminium (TMA) as precursors at

Bio-inspired micro-to-nanoporous polymers with tunable stiffness

• Julia Syurik,
• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Prerna Sudera,
• Stephan Weyand,
• Siegbert Johnsen,
• Gabriele Wiegand and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 906–914, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.92

• generation of nanoporous polymeric foams accessible [17]. Saturation in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) [18] is a well-established method for the fabrication of polymeric foams. The process of pore nucleation by saturation in SC-CO2 consists of three basic steps [14][19]: (i) mixing of a polymer and SC

• -CO2 to form a homogeneous solution; (ii) pore nucleation and phase separation induced by a thermodynamic instability, which is usually caused by a temperature increase or a pressure decrease, and (iii) pore growth due to diffusion of SC-CO2 from the polymer matrix to the pores [20]. When the polymer

Triptycene-terminated thiolate and selenolate monolayers on Au(111)

• Jinxuan Liu,
• Martin Kind,
• Björn Schüpbach,
• Daniel Käfer,
• Stefanie Winkler,
• Wenhua Zhang,
• Andreas Terfort and
• Christof Wöll

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 892–905, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.91

• than the analogous thiolate SAMs. Domain size and, correspondingly, defect density might have a significant influence, e.g., on the usability of SAMs as templates for the growth of SURMOFs, given the potential of defects to act as nucleation sites. In this context, it will be interesting to repeat

Investigation of growth dynamics of carbon nanotubes

• Marianna V. Kharlamova

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 826–856, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.85

• Figure 3a,b recorded at 615 °C show Ni particles for which SWCNT nucleation has stopped early. On top of each catalyst particle, a small-sized carbon cap is visible. Crystalline lattice fringe contrast is seen in the Ni particle, as marked by white lines. The authors of [59] assigned strong reflections

• using C2H2 as carbon source and iron carbide catalyst. Figure 5a shows in situ HRTEM micrographs of the growth process of individual SWCNT. Before the nucleation of SWCNT, the catalyst nanoparticle shows in every snapshot different facets (e.g., t = 8.05 and 16.45 s). Various carbon cages jut out from

• SWCNTs or nuclei and the nanoparticles on which they grow. They proved the existence of two nucleation and growth modes of nanotubes: tangential and perpendicular modes. In the tangential growth mode, the carbon wall of growing nanotube is oriented tangentially to the surface of nanoparticle. As a result

Recombinant DNA technology and click chemistry: a powerful combination for generating a hybrid elastin-like-statherin hydrogel to control calcium phosphate mineralization

• Mohamed Hamed Misbah,
• Mercedes Santos,
• Luis Quintanilla,
• Christina Günter,
• Matilde Alonso,
• Andreas Taubert and
• José Carlos Rodríguez-Cabello

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 772–783, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.80

• calcium phosphate (ACP) phase [9][12][13] remains a challenge due to the fast nucleation, aggregation and subsequent anisotropic growth of the crystal faces. Biomineralization-inspired “soft chemistry” routes provide simple and often rather cheap protocols for the synthesis of complex CP-based hybrid

• easily cross-linked via click chemistry in an aqueous medium to form a hydrogel matrix. This hydrogel matrix has a marked impact on the mineralization of calcium phosphates. In absence of the SNA15 nucleation inhibitor, cauliflower-like HA is formed. In contrast, plate-like HA grows in the presence of

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

• porous iron oxide ribbons by controlling the nucleation and growth of iron precursors on a graphene surface, which was followed by an annealing treatment and used for high-performance lithium storage [157]. Liang et al. have prepared graphene–Fe3O4 NP hybrid paper by a filtration process which shows an

• ] (Figure 6). N-doping of reduced mildly oxidised graphene oxide (rmGO) affords stronger coupling than rmGO and Co3O4 (Co3O4/N-rmGO than in Co3O4/rmGO) due to favourable nucleation and anchor sites for Co3O4 nanocrystals as N-groups help on rGO. In the ORR, the electronic effect of N-doping of graphene also

Diffusion and surface alloying of gradient nanostructured metals

• Zhenbo Wang and
• Ke Lu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 547–560, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.59

• between two (or more) primary phases usually involves the nucleation and the coarsening stages of the formed phase(s), the nucleation conditions at the interface play decisive roles on the subsequent reactive diffusion process [58]. In comparison with the reactive diffusion processes in CG samples, some

• in the CG sample. The promoted growth kinetics in GNS samples may also be understood in terms of the reaction kinetics of nucleation and growth. Because GBs usually act as preferable nucleation sites, the existence of a large number of GBs in the nanostructured substrate may result in a significant

• improvement in the reaction between alloying elements and substrate atoms. The nucleation rate, , can be written as [64]: where ΔG* is the critical Gibbs energy for nucleation, ω is a frequency factor, and C0 is the number of atoms at contacting interfaces. While the value of the critical Gibbs energy for

Formation and shape-control of hierarchical cobalt nanostructures using quaternary ammonium salts in aqueous media

• Ruchi Deshmukh,
• Anurag Mehra and
• Rochish Thaokar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 494–505, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.53

• obtained, we define important steps for the formation of these anisotropic structures in Figure 2. The process has three important stages: (i) nucleation, (ii) seed formation, and (iii) slow crystal growth (Figure 2a). The seed particles initially have size of around 30-50 nm (Figure 2b,c), and when

• = 110 nm. Schematic representation of growth and interlocking of cobalt nanoplates. (a) The growth curve shows that the formation of nanoplates can be divided into nucleation, kinetically driven seed formation, and growth; (b,c) FEGTEM and FEGSEM images of spherical cobalt seeds; (d) hierarchical long

The longstanding challenge of the nanocrystallization of 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX)

• Florent Pessina and
• Denis Spitzer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 452–466, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.49

• stirring. Achieving a high level of supersaturation results in a higher nucleation rate, but aggregation increases rapidly. For this solvent/compound system, they produced smaller particles and reduced the agglomeration by sonication and the particles were finally obtained by drying. This method may be

• ] and the Battelle Institute research team [63][64] in more detail. The RESS process consists of spraying a supercritical (sc) fluid containing the substrate through a nozzle in a low pressure chamber (0–60 bar). The sudden pressure decrease leads to rapid nucleation where small particles (from

Tailoring bifunctional hybrid organic–inorganic nanoadsorbents by the choice of functional layer composition probed by adsorption of Cu²⁺ ions

• Veronika V. Tomina,
• Inna V. Melnyk,
• Yuriy L. Zub,
• Aivaras Kareiva,
• Miroslava Vaclavikova,
• Gulaim A. Seisenbaeva and
• Vadim G. Kessler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 334–347, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.36

• temperatures, while the increased temperature favors nucleation with less charged and easier coalescing nuclei that aggregate easier (sample NMh). The behavior of the three-component system APTES/TEOS/MTES is thus more complex and is not dominated by the reactivity of any single component. The decrease in TEOS

• Information File 1). It can be deduced that the introduction of a silane bearing a hydrophobic group possibly favors nucleation over growth and results in relatively smaller particles. Molecular structure of the functional layers from IR and NMR data IR spectroscopy was used to identify the presence of