Robust procedure for creating and characterizing the atomic structure of scanning tunneling microscope tips

• Sumit Tewari,
• Koen M. Bastiaans,
• Milan P. Allan and
• Jan M. van Ruitenbeek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2389–2395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.238

• -temperature annealing as for many semiconductors. However, a well defined tip structure at the atomic scale is still hard to achieve. Mechanical grinding [1], electro-polishing [11] or electrochemical etching [12][13] are standard ex situ methods for preparing microscopically sharp tips. The tip apex can be

• 20 nm, as obtained by grinding and mechanical polishing. PtIr tips are among the most commonly used tips in STM experiments as opposed to Au tip used in reference [25]. We exploit the fact that the tips become covered with the Au sample material at the apex. We anticipate that the nanoscale tip

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

• (SEM) measurements were employed to assess nanoparticle uptake, surface polishing, and resistance to solid–liquid interfacial shear motion. The QCM studies revealed abrupt changes to the surfaces of both alumina and stainless steel upon injection of –ND into the surrounding water environment that are

• studied and act as passivation agents. They also reveal that −ND and +ND may act as neutralizing or removal agents for one another. In order to probe ND attachment/film formation and/or polishing effects for the surfaces as a whole and to separate this from effects confined within the contact region, AFM

• Figure 4 images do not specifically reveal whether substrate material was removed in a polishing process during immersion as has been clearly documented for gold QCM electrodes in aqueous suspensions of SiO2 [43]. While alumina and SS304 may not be as susceptible to erosion and polishing as gold, NDs

Nanotribological behavior of deep cryogenically treated martensitic stainless steel

• Germán Prieto,
• Konstantinos D. Bakoglidis,
• Walter R. Tuckart and
• Esteban Broitman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1760–1768, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.177

• press, and then were polished with a Struers TEGRAMIN-30 automatic polishing machine, employing diamond suspensions down to 0.25 μm in particle size. The obtained roughness parameters, measured with a Hysitron TI950 triboindenter, were: Ra = 15 ± 3.2 nm, Rz = 98 ± 18 nm, Rt = 125 ± 31 nm. The polished

Surface improvement of organic photoresists using a near-field-dependent etching method

• Felix J. Brandenburg,
• Tomohiro Okamoto,
• Hiroshi Saito,
• Benjamin Leuschel,
• Olivier Soppera and
• Takashi Yatsui

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 784–788, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.81

• . Conventional chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) methods [7] are generally limited by the roughness of its polishing pad, which is on the order of 10 µm, and by the diameter of the particles in the chemical slurry, which can be around 100 nm. Furthermore, due to issues with cost and material availability

Influence of hydrofluoric acid treatment on electroless deposition of Au clusters

• Rachela G. Milazzo,
• Antonio M. Mio,
• Giuseppe D’Arrigo,
• Emanuele Smecca,
• Alessandra Alberti,
• Gabriele Fisichella,
• Filippo Giannazzo,
• Corrado Spinella and
• Emanuele Rimini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 183–189, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.19

• milled with a Gatan PIPS II device, according to a low-energy procedure. Gentle milling was performed at low temperature (less than −100 °C with LN2 cooling) at a 6° milling angle and with beam energy of 1 keV and current of 30 µA at the beginning and of 0.1 keV and 25 µA for final polishing. Plan view

When the going gets rough – studying the effect of surface roughness on the adhesive abilities of tree frogs

• Niall Crawford,
• Thomas Endlein,
• Jonathan T. Pham,
• Mathis Riehle and
• W. Jon P. Barnes

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2116–2131, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.201

• test sticking ability, both at the toe pad level and in free climbing tree frogs, using different rough surfaces. In the main, polishing discs and sandpaper were used, since the range of roughnesses found in such materials was closest to the natural surfaces that a climbing tree frog would encounter

• . For the single toe pad force measurements, both translucent resin replicas of the sand and polishing papers and fabricated surfaces of known dimensions were used. The hypothesis tested was that, on rough surfaces with larger asperities (i.e., larger than the pad cell diameter of 10 µm), the increased

• can be thought of as a viscoelastic material and, as such, will dissipate energy when it is deformed [29]. Such energy would contribute to the friction force on rough surfaces. Indeed, such viscoelastic deformations can also enhance adhesion [30]. For larger roughnesses on the polishing disc surfaces

Annealing-induced recovery of indents in thin Au(Fe) bilayer films

• Anna Kosinova,
• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Leonid Klinger and
• Eugen Rabkin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2088–2099, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.199

• indents by mechanical polishing. The mechanism of the hillock formation upon heating is in that case related to the martensite–austenite phase transformation, which is affected by residual stress and very different from the irreversible mechanisms discussed in the present study. Conclusion From the

Graphene-enhanced plasmonic nanohole arrays for environmental sensing in aqueous samples

• Christa Genslein,
• Peter Hausler,
• Eva-Maria Kirchner,
• Rudolf Bierl,
• Antje J. Baeumner and
• Thomas Hirsch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1564–1573, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.150

• of NSL with electrochemical deposition, ion-polishing, plasma treatment and glancing-angle deposition produces ordered nanohole arrays. Therefore, NSL is a promising tool to produce nanostructured substrates. Here, nanohole arrays were prepared by a modified nanosphere lithography (Figure 1). The

Deformation-driven catalysis of nanocrystallization in amorphous Al alloys

• Rainer J. Hebert,
• John H. Perepezko,
• Harald Rösner and
• Gerhard Wilde

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1428–1433, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.134

• prepared by grinding, polishing, and electrolytic thinning with dilute perchloric acid. The nanocrystals in the partially devitrified Al88Y7Fe5 alloy have been identified as Al nanocrystals [40]. The size distribution analysis of the Al nanocrystals inside the shear bands of the rolled sample before and

Voltammetric determination of polyphenolic content in pomegranate juice using a poly(gallic acid)/multiwalled carbon nanotube modified electrode

• Refat Abdel-Hamid and
• Emad F. Newair

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1104–1112, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.103

• polished with 0.05 μm alumina water slurry using a polishing cloth until the electrode surfaces developed a mirror finish. Then, it was rinsed thoroughly with double-distilled water. The PGA/MWCNT/GC modified electrode was prepared as follows. 20 µL of the MWCNT suspension was drop-casted onto the polished

Multiwalled carbon nanotube hybrids as MRI contrast agents

• Nikodem Kuźnik and
• Mateusz M. Tomczyk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1086–1103, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.102

• refluxed pristine MWCNT in 17% HNO3 for 38 h and then subjected it to sonication with the mixed acid at 35–40 °C for 4 h in order to, as they stated, cut the nanotubes into short pieces. Finally, the oMWCNTs were treated with a 4:1 mixture of conc. H2SO4 and 30% H2O2 at 70 °C for 1 h for “further polishing

Magnetic switching of nanoscale antidot lattices

• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Joachim Gräfe,
• Kristof M. Lebecki,
• Maxim Skripnik,
• Felix Haering,
• Gisela Schütz,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Eberhard Goering and
• Ulrich Nowak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 733–750, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.65

• capping layer for oxidation protection (c), and (d) the chemo-mechanical polishing for the removal of the masking spheres including their magnetic caps. In this way, we prepare hexagonal antidot lattices with antidot distances a = 100–500 nm at variable antidot diameter d = 0.1–0.9a. The thickness of the

• deposited films is limited to roughly half the antidot diameter, since the acetone-based chemo-mechanical polishing needs a sidewise access to the spheres allowing PS dissolution. Under best conditions, we achieve defect-free antidot lattices of 25 × 25 µm2. Thus, integral measurements like SQUID

Tight junction between endothelial cells: the interaction between nanoparticles and blood vessels

• Yue Zhang and
• Wan-Xi Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 675–684, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.60

• the Sperm Laboratory in Zhejiang University for valuable discussions. This project was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41276151 and 31572603). The authors thank Chris Wood for his effort on linguistic polishing of this review.

Orientation of FePt nanoparticles on top of a-SiO₂/Si(001), MgO(001) and sapphire(0001): effect of thermal treatments and influence of substrate and particle size

• Martin Schilling,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Zaoli Zhang,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Ute Kaiser and
• Ulf Wiedwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 591–604, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.52

• preparation via cutting, mechanical grinding and polishing followed by low angle Ar+ ion milling. Structural analysis of nanoparticles and films on top of single crystalline substrates by electron diffraction in RHEED geometry In the following, we briefly discuss the RHEED experiments on (i) single crystals

Electrochemical behavior of polypyrrol/AuNP composites deposited by different electrochemical methods: sensing properties towards catechol

• Celia García-Hernández,
• Cristina García-Cabezón,
• Cristina Medina-Plaza,
• Fernando Martín-Pedrosa,
• Yolanda Blanco,
• José Antonio de Saja and
• María Luz Rodríguez-Méndez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2052–2061, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.209

• alumina suspension using a microcloth polishing pad and rinsed with deionized water in an ultrasonic bath. Electropolymerization of Ppy films The Ppy films were obtained by electropolymerization from a solution containing 0.1 mol/L pyrrole and 0.05 mol/L 1-decanesulfonic acid (DSA) using two

Nanostructuring of GeTiO amorphous films by pulsed laser irradiation

• Valentin S. Teodorescu,
• Cornel Ghica,
• Adrian V. Maraloiu,
• Mihai Vlaicu,
• Andrei Kuncser,
• Magdalena L. Ciurea,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Ana M. Lepadatu,
• Nicu D. Scarisoreanu,
• Andreea Andrei,
• Valentin Ion and
• Maria Dinescu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 893–900, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.92

• film sample were glued face to face, followed by mechanical polishing and ion milling in a Gatan PIPS model 691 aparatus. Transmission electron microscopy was performed by using a Jeol ARM 200F electron microscope, performing normal TEM imaging, scanning transmission electron microscopy-high angle

Mapping of elasticity and damping in an α + β titanium alloy through atomic force acoustic microscopy

• M. Kalyan Phani,
• Anish Kumar,
• T. Jayakumar,
• Walter Arnold and
• Konrad Samwer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 767–776, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.79

• K (above the β-transus temperature) for one hour, followed by water quenching. The solution-annealed specimens were then heat-treated at 923, 1123 and 1223 K, respectively, for one hour, followed by water quenching. The specimens were prepared by using an automatic polishing machine down to 0.25 µm

• diamond solution. Further, the specimens were polished by using a 50 nm colloidal silica suspension at a very low load to obtain the strain-free specimen surfaces. Plane parallelism of the specimens was maintained throughout the polishing. An NTEGRA AFAM system supplied by M/s. NT-MDT Co., Zelenograd

• contact-resonance spectra. A topographical variation is always observed for different phases upon mechanical/chemical-mechanical polishing of a sample due to difference in their mechanical/chemical properties. Even differences in the crystallographic orientation of the phase exhibit different topography

Self-assembled anchor layers/polysaccharide coatings on titanium surfaces: a study of functionalization and stability

• Ognen Pop-Georgievski,
• Dana Kubies,
• Josef Zemek,
• Neda Neykova,
• Roman Demianchuk,
• Eliška Mázl Chánová,
• Miroslav Šlouf,
• Milan Houska and
• František Rypáček

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 617–631, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.63

• XPS, is summarized in Table 1. Considerable amounts of aluminum and silicon were observed on the pristine surfaces, most likely from the polishing pastes used by the producer. In order to produce a consistent and reproducible titanium oxide surface layer, four different chemical treatments were tested

Electrical contacts to individual SWCNTs: A review

• Wei Liu,
• Christofer Hierold and
• Miroslav Haluska

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2202–2215, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.229

• an optimized temperature [50]. This has been shown to be a great advantage for MWCNT interconnects. As demonstrated in [51], the caps of vertically (with respect to the horizontal substrate) aligned MWCNTs were removed by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) followed by metal deposition to form the

A reproducible number-based sizing method for pigment-grade titanium dioxide

• Ralf Theissmann,
• Manfred Kluwig and
• Thomas Koch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1815–1822, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.192

• are removed after the mixing process. The mixture is then hot-mounted by using a Struers Citopress under standard conditions of 180 °C and 3 bar pressure. A five-step polishing process, with active oxide polishing as the final step, leads to a smooth, scratch-free section through the embedded pigments

Precise quantification of silica and ceria nanoparticle uptake revealed by 3D fluorescence microscopy

• Adriano A. Torrano and
• Christoph Bräuchle

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1616–1624, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.173

• nanoparticles have a wide range of applications such as in chemical mechanical polishing, cosmetics, food, additives to pharmaceutical drugs, and in biotechnological and biomedical fields [6][7][8][9]. Ceria nanoparticles can be also found in many applications, as in ultraviolet absorbers, automotive catalytic

Observation and analysis of structural changes in fused silica by continuous irradiation with femtosecond laser light having an energy density below the laser-induced damage threshold

• Wataru Nomura,
• Tadashi Kawazoe,
• Takashi Yatsui,
• Makoto Naruse and
• Motoichi Ohtsu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1334–1340, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.146

• relation between laser-induced degradation and surface roughness is revealed, it may contribute to the development of a surface polishing technology for optical components with higher resistance against not only laser-induced damage but also degradation. Moreover, the clarification of the mechanism and

• surface. As measurement samples, we used high-purity fused silica flat substrates in which the OH impurity content was 0.8 ppm or less. We used two samples: sample A, which was prepared by planarizing a substrate using standard chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) [11], and sample B, which was prepared by

Dry friction of microstructured polymer surfaces inspired by snake skin

• Martina J. Baum,
• Lars Heepe,
• Elena Fadeeva and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1091–1103, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.122

• originated from moulds of polishing paper (FibrMet Discs, Buehler GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany) with different grain sizes (Ra: 0.3 µm, 1 µm, 3 µm, 9 µm, and 12 µm) (Figure 3b). The master for the third type of surfaces was produced from zirconium oxide surface microstructured by femtosecond laser ablation

Shape-selected nanocrystals for in situ spectro-electrochemistry studies on structurally well defined surfaces under controlled electrolyte transport: A combined in situ ATR-FTIR/online DEMS investigation of CO electrooxidation on Pt

• Sylvain Brimaud,
• Zenonas Jusys and
• R. Jürgen Behm

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 735–746, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.86

• by electroless deposition on the flat plane of a Si prism, using the procedure published by Miyake et al. [18]. After polishing and cleaning of the Si prism, its flat surface was dipped into 40% NH4F (BASF, Selectipure grade) in order to remove the oxide layer and to obtain a H-terminated Si surface

Applicability and costs of nanofiltration in combination with photocatalysis for the treatment of dye house effluents

• Wolfgang M. Samhaber and
• Minh Tan Nguyen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 476–484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.55

• membrane fouling. The challenge of this concept can further be seen in its highly efficient oxidation. The following NF acts almost solely as a polishing step and possibly for the recovery or recycling of the catalysts. A clear effluent stream with less complex constituents together with a high optical

• , photocatalysis acts more or less as a polishing step to reduce residual colour compounds, which are contained in the NF permeate. This concept is comparable with a general NF treatment concept at the source, and therefore, the feed has to be pre-treated in order to avoid membrane fouling as mentioned previously

• and finally disposed according to local regulations. The permeate stream, which is already reduced in colour and in dissolved organic compounds, is post-treated in the photocatalysis, which can again be classified as a polishing step. A more sophisticated concept is shown in Figure 4. A submerged UF