Advances in nanocarbon composite materials

• Sharali Malik,
• Arkady V. Krasheninnikov and
• Silvia Marchesan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 20–21, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.3

• newer areas of nanocarbon materials for use in biomedicine and diagnostics. Energy transfer materials are also well represented with articles and reviews covering aspects of engineering, thermo-mechanical properties, photovoltaics and Li-ion battery materials. Last but not least, we would like to thank

Synthesis of [{AgO₂CCH₂OMe(PPh₃)}_n] and theoretical study of its use in focused electron beam induced deposition

• Jelena Tamuliene,
• Julian Noll,
• Peter Frenzel,
• Tobias Rüffer,
• Alexander Jakob,
• Bernhard Walfort and
• Heinrich Lang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2615–2624, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.262

• metals [5]. In this context, the deposition of, for example, silver is challenging, since there is a lack of volatile silver precursors for FEBID processes [5]. Silver (nano)structures are of importance, for example, in circuits, batteries, LED or RFID chips, medicine and photovoltaics [1]. Recently, it

Changes of the absorption cross section of Si nanocrystals with temperature and distance

• Michael Greben,
• Petro Khoroshyy,
• Sebastian Gutsch,
• Daniel Hiller,
• Margit Zacharias and
• Jan Valenta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2315–2323, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.231

• attainable purity – has been a dominant material for microelectronics and photovoltaics. However, the constantly increasing energy consumption and environmental issues challenge researchers to develop fundamentally new concepts to overcome the limitations of current technologies. The nanocrystalline form of

• photovoltaics, nanocrystalline Si is a promising material for the top cell of all-Si tandem cells that can theoretically reach efficiencies much above the Shockley–Queisser limit of 31% for single-junction solar cells [2]. Current injection into Si NCs can be utilized in Si-based light emitting diodes or

Synthesis and characterization of noble metal–titania core–shell nanostructures with tunable shell thickness

• Bartosz Bartosewicz,
• Marta Michalska-Domańska,
• Malwina Liszewska,
• Dariusz Zasada and
• Bartłomiej J. Jankiewicz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2083–2093, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.208

• use in many fields. For example, TiO2 nanomaterials have been investigated for their use in photocatalysis [12][13][14], photocatalytic fuel generation [15], photovoltaics and sensors [16][17]. The CSNs with noble metal (Au, Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) as a core and TiO2 shell, Au@TiO2 and Ag@TiO2, have

• 20–30 nm up to 100 nm simply by changing the titania precursor concentration. These as-prepared materials have significant absorption in the UV and visible range and therefore have high potential for applications in solar-light-driven photocatalysis and photovoltaics. In addition, we show for the

• . Fabricated core–shell nanostructures have significant extinction in the UV and visible range and therefore should be of great interest for applications in solar-light-driven photocatalysis and photovoltaics. In the future, studies will be carried out to further optimize reaction conditions toward coating

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

• interfaces have received special attention as an integral component in organic photovoltaics and organic light-emitting diode systems. Developing a transparent pressure-responsive nanocomposite has potential application within touchscreen displays. To synthesize a transparent nanocomposite coating, the

Two-dimensional carbon-based nanocomposites for photocatalytic energy generation and environmental remediation applications

• Suneel Kumar,
• Ashish Kumar,
• Ashish Bahuguna,
• Vipul Sharma and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1571–1600, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.159

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

Oxidative chemical vapor deposition of polyaniline thin films

• Yuriy Y. Smolin,
• Masoud Soroush and
• Kenneth K. S. Lau

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1266–1276, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.128

• demonstrated PEDOT as a neutral hole-transporting polymer for enhancing solar cells efficiency and lifetime [28]. oCVD PEDOT was also used to encapsulate flexible organic photovoltaics [29] and in the fabrication of organic photovoltaic circuits on unmodified paper [30]. Likewise, our group demonstrated the

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

• in 1985 [5], fullerenes have played an important role in molecular surface science, organic photovoltaics and single-molecule electronics. Fullerenes can be deposited on a series of metallic and semiconducting substrates [6][7][8]. In molecular transport, they have been used both as target molecules

Optical response of heterogeneous polymer layers containing silver nanostructures

• Miriam Carlberg,
• Florent Pourcin,
• Olivier Margeat,
• Judikaël Le Rouzo,
• Gérard Berginc,
• Rose-Marie Sauvage,
• Jörg Ackermann and
• Ludovic Escoubas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1065–1072, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.108

• NPs, the thin film layers will absorb in the visible wavelength range. This leads to applications of plasmonic thin film layers for photodetectors [10], photovoltaics [6][11] or nonreflective coatings [12][13][14]. In this works, silver NPs were chosen for their high electric field enhancement in the

Near-field surface plasmon field enhancement induced by rippled surfaces

• Mario D’Acunto,
• Francesco Fuso,
• Ruggero Micheletto,
• Makoto Naruse,
• Francesco Tantussi and
• Maria Allegrini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 956–967, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.97

• spectroscopy (TERS) [5], plasmonic photovoltaics [6][7][8], plasmonic nanosensors [9][10], and near-field optical theory [2][11][12]. It is commonly accepted that enormous field enhancements at the resonance of the optical response applied to randomly patterned metal nanostructures are highly dependent upon

Synthesis of coaxial nanotubes of polyaniline and poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) by oxidative/initiated chemical vapor deposition

• Alper Balkan,
• Efe Armagan and
• Gozde Ozaydin Ince

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 872–882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.89

• various applications, such as biotechnology [1][2], food industry [3][4], sensors [5] or photovoltaics [6]. Polymeric nanostructures have attained special interest because of their prominent advantages, such as cost-effectiveness, ease of fabrication and biocompatibility making these nanostructures

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

Analysis and modification of defective surface aggregates on PCDTBT:PCBM solar cell blends using combined Kelvin probe, conductive and bimodal atomic force microscopy

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

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 579–589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.62

• force microscopy; multifrequency AFM; organic photovoltaics; polymer solar cells; surface defects; Introduction Polymer solar cells (PSCs) [1] have been widely studied due to the abundance of their constituents, their mechanical flexibility and light weight, as well as the possibility of low-cost roll

In-situ monitoring by Raman spectroscopy of the thermal doping of graphene and MoS₂ in O₂-controlled atmosphere

• Aurora Piazza,
• Filippo Giannazzo,
• Gianpiero Buscarino,
• Gabriele Fisichella,
• Antonino La Magna,
• Fabrizio Roccaforte,
• Marco Cannas,
• Franco Mario Gelardi and
• Simonpietro Agnello

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 418–424, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.44

• availability of Gr paved the way for studies and applications in many fields of materials science and technology including optics, electronics, and photovoltaics [5][6]. In these contexts, different growth processes optimized to obtain large area-samples, comprising epitaxial growth on silicon carbide [7][8

Tandem polymer solar cells: simulation and optimization through a multiscale scheme

• Fanan Wei,
• Ligang Yao,
• Fei Lan,
• Guangyong Li and
• Lianqing Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 123–133, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.13

• photovoltaics to achieve high performance. Consistency between the optimization results and the reported experimental results proved the effectiveness of the proposed simulation scheme. Keywords: genetic algorithm; Monte Carlo simulation; simplex searching; tandem polymer solar cells; Introduction Polymer

• performance (especially, the low power conversion efficiency (PCE)) when compared with their inorganic counterparts. Therefore, great efforts have been devoted to improving the performance of polymer photovoltaics. To fulfil this goal, various methods, including annealing [1], active materials modification [2

• demonstrated to be one of the most effective solutions. Due to the unavoidable mismatch between the absorption spectrum of active materials and that of the sunlight, a large portion of the sunlight energy will be lost in organic photovoltaics when a single active material is employed. Thus, as illustrated in

Diffusion of dilute gas in arrays of randomly distributed, vertically aligned, high-aspect-ratio cylinders

• Wojciech Szmyt,
• Carlos Guerra and
• Ivo Utke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 64–73, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.7

• potential fields of applications such as photovoltaics [7], photocatalysis [8], organic electronics [9] and supercapacitors [10]. Surface functionalisation and nanoengineering of high-aspect-ratio nanocylinder arrays often involve the exposure of the structures to gas-phase chemicals, for instance, during

Sb₂S₃ grown by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis and its application in a hybrid solar cell

• Erki Kärber,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Ilona Oja Acik,
• Arvo Mere,
• Valdek Mikli and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1662–1673, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.158

• the EQE result, the integrated product the EQE(λ) and solar irradiance IAM1.5(λ) was calculated by using the online tool Open Photovoltaics Analysis Platform, and compared with the JSC obtained from the current–voltage scan. Raman spectra A–D of thin layers grown by spraying solutions with Sb/S

Scanning probe microscopy studies on the adsorption of selected molecular dyes on titania

• Jakub S. Prauzner-Bechcicki,
• Lukasz Zajac,
• Piotr Olszowski,
• Res Jöhr,
• Antoine Hinaut,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Bartosz Such,
• Ernst Meyer and
• Marek Szymonski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1642–1653, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.156

• injection and charge transport both are very important when considering potential applications in photovoltaics, electronics and other fields. Additionally, inherent surface defects, such as oxygen vacancies on the TiO2(110) surface, cannot be ignored because they affect the level alignment of the molecule

The effect of dry shear aligning of nanotube thin films on the photovoltaic performance of carbon nanotube–silicon solar cells

• Benedikt W. Stolz,
• Daniel D. Tune and
• Benjamin S. Flavel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1486–1491, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.141

• explored from both a fundamental theory point of view [1][2], as well as experimentally in a host of different device architectures, including as additives in dye solar cells [3][4], organic photovoltaics [5][6], and perovskites [7][8] and as the active light absorbing component in conjunction with

Fast diffusion of silver in TiO₂ nanotube arrays

• Wanggang Zhang,
• Yiming Liu,
• Diaoyu Zhou,
• Hui Wang,
• Wei Liang and
• Fuqian Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1129–1140, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.105

• structures, TiO2 nanotubes (TNT) seem to be an ideal candidate for the applications in energy storage and photovoltaics. The intrinsic poor electric conductivity and large bandgaps (approx. 3.4 eV for anatase TiO2 [18] and approx. 3.0 eV for rutile TiO2 [19][20]) have limited the applications of TiO2 of low

Photocurrent generation in carbon nanotube/cubic-phase HfO₂ nanoparticle hybrid nanocomposites

• Protima Rauwel,
• Augustinas Galeckas,
• Martin Salumaa,
• Frédérique Ducroquet and
• Erwan Rauwel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1075–1085, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.101

• surface states of HfO2 nanoparticles via direct contact with MWCNTs turns them from radiative to nonradiative recombination centers and contributes to photocurrent generation in the material. Such a material therefore finds interest for applications in photovoltaics owing to an increase in its spectral

High-resolution noncontact AFM and Kelvin probe force microscopy investigations of self-assembled photovoltaic donor–acceptor dyads

• Benjamin Grévin,
• Pierre-Olivier Schwartz,
• Laure Biniek,
• Martin Brinkmann,
• Nicolas Leclerc,
• Elena Zaborova and
• Stéphane Méry

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 799–808, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.71

• elementary building block level. Keywords: donor–acceptor co-oligomers; donor–acceptor lamellae; donor–acceptor-ordered bulk heterojunction; Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM); noncontact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM); organic photovoltaics; surface photo-voltage (SPV); Introduction Nowadays, with

Organized films

• Maurizio Canepa and
• Helmuth Möhwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 406–408, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.35

• with specific functionalities for applications in strategic technology fields as varied as theranostics, energy production and storage, and photovoltaics. Similar trajectories were observed for SAMs, with increasing attention on new combinations of functional molecules and substrates, new analysis

• tools and new preparation methods [23], which varied significantly from the more traditional deposition from solution [24]. This is the case for MBE-like deposition in vacuum or UHV conditions [25], which is of current interest in the area of organic photovoltaics [26]. This also applies for biological

Synthesis and applications of carbon nanomaterials for energy generation and storage

• Marco Notarianni,
• Jinzhang Liu,
• Kristy Vernon and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 149–196, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.17

• photovoltaics and supercapacitors have been reviewed and discussed in this work, highlighting their benefits as compared to other materials commonly used in these devices. The use of fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene in organic photovoltaics and supercapacitors is described in detail, explaining how

• into the electronic market. Organic photovoltaics Over the past twenty years, organic photovoltaics have rapidly improved because of the potential to obtain a manufacturing process that is faster, less expensive and with higher production volume as compared to silicon technology [175][176][177][178