Constant-distance mode SECM as a tool to visualize local electrocatalytic activity of oxygen reduction catalysts

• Michaela Nebel,
• Thomas Erichsen and
• Wolfgang Schuhmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 141–151, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.14

• used. The platinum of the fabricated SECM tips was exposed by cutting the very end of the pulled Pt/capillary assembly with a blade under microscopic control (BX41, Olympus, Hamburg, Germany). For polishing a machine like in [42] was used. The electrodes were characterized by means of optical

• overall outer diameter of 1.5 mm was used as a model sample for 4D SF/CD-RC-SECM experiments. Microcavities as platforms for catalyst immobilization were prepared via electrochemical etching of Au microelectrodes with diameters of 100 µm. After polishing of the initial Au disc electrode and cleaning for

Exploring the retention properties of CaF₂ nanoparticles as possible additives for dental care application with tapping-mode atomic force microscope in liquid

• Matthias Wasem,
• Joachim Köser,
• Sylvia Hess,
• Enrico Gnecco and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 36–43, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.4

• on tooth enamel compared to mica. Although the enamel had an increased surface roughness compared to mica as a result of the mechanical polishing, which resulted in a decreased contact area of the particle with the substrate, more power was needed to dislocate the particles. We relate this to the

• comparable for all experiments. Acknowledgements We thank W. Tschudin from the Institute of Mineralogy and Petrography at the University of Basel for polishing the teeth. We also acknowledge GABA International for providing the teeth substrates. This work was supported by the Swiss Nanoscience Institute

Challenges in realizing ultraflat materials surfaces

• Takashi Yatsui,
• Wataru Nomura,
• Fabrice Stehlin,
• Olivier Soppera,
• Makoto Naruse and
• Motoichi Ohtsu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 875–885, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.99

• model that describes the scale-dependent effects of optical near-fields. Finally, we present the future outlook for these technologies. Keywords: dressed photon–phonon; phonon-assisted process; polishing; self-organized process; Review Introduction In order to improve device performance and to

• polishing has been used to flatten surfaces. However, this method is generally limited to reducing Ra to around several angstroms, because the minimum value is governed by the roughness of the polishing pad, which is on the order of 10 μm, or the diameter of the polishing particles in the slurry, which can

• be as small as 100 nm. The slurries that are used for chemical–mechanical polishing (CMP) [7] consist of a large amount of the rare-earth material CeO2, which chemically polishes the substrate. Owing to issues of cost and material availability, there has recently been an effort to reduce the usage of

Ultramicrosensors based on transition metal hexacyanoferrates for scanning electrochemical microscopy

• Maria A. Komkova,
• Angelika Holzinger,
• Andreas Hartmann,
• Alexei R. Khokhlov,
• Christine Kranz,
• Arkady A. Karyakin and
• Oleg G. Voronin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 649–654, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.72

• Sigma-Aldrich. Polishing materials were obtained from Leco Instruments GmbH and Allied High Tech Products Inc. Gold and platinum microwires were purchased from Goodfellow. The micro glassy carbon electrodes were obtained from ESA Biosciences Inc. The electrochemical experiments were conducted in a three

• platinum or gold wires (25 μm and 10 µm in diameter, respectively) under vacuum in borosilicate glass (Hilgenberg) or soda lime glass, respectively, followed by consecutive grinding, and polishing steps. Electrodes were then cleaned in an ultrasonic bath for 15 minutes. Circular Pt/C composite layers were

Deformation-induced grain growth and twinning in nanocrystalline palladium thin films

• Aaron Kobler,
• Jochen Lohmiller,
• Jonathan Schäfer,
• Michael Kerber,
• Anna Castrup,
• Ankush Kashiwar,
• Patric A. Gruber,
• Karsten Albe,
• Horst Hahn and
• Christian Kübel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 554–566, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.64

• -mortem TEM analysis were prepared either by focused ion beam (FIB) using a FEI Strata 400S DualBeam at 5 kV and 8 pA beam current for final polishing (sample ncPd 1) or by mechanical dimpling and Argon ion milling from the polyimide side at 2.5 kV in a PIPS (Gatan) (sample ncPd 2). FIB prepared samples

Grating-assisted coupling to nanophotonic circuits in microcrystalline diamond thin films

• Patrik Rath,
• Svetlana Khasminskaya,
• Christoph Nebel,
• Christoph Wild and
• Wolfram H.P. Pernice

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 300–305, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.33

• diamond ridge waveguides. Since scattering loss is the dominant loss channel, in future work further improvement of the propagation loss will be possible by using surface polishing procedures to reduce the as-grown surface roughness. Discussion Our implementation of wafer-scale diamond-on-insulator

Sub-10 nm colloidal lithography for circuit-integrated spin-photo-electronic devices

• Adrian Iovan,
• Marco Fischer,
• Roberto Lo Conte and
• Vladislav Korenivski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 884–892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.98

• polystyrene particles after down-scaling by using acetone and mechanical polishing also did not work. Another technique tested with only partial success was heating of the sample just below the melting point of polystyrene, where the dilatation coefficient makes the particles expand in volume significantly

Tuning the properties of magnetic thin films by interaction with periodic nanostructures

• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Felix Haering,
• Stefan Nau,
• Carsten Schulze,
• Herbert Schletter,
• Denys Makarov,
• Alfred Plettl,
• Karsten Kuepper,
• Manfred Albrecht,
• Johannes Boneberg and
• Paul Ziemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 831–842, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.93

• PS spheres including the magnetic caps on top may also be removed by chemo-mechanical polishing leading to a void structure, which may potentially be used as 2-D artificial spin-ice systems [27]. In the following, however, we focus on percolated films with magnetic caps present. In summary, the

Reversible mechano-electrochemical writing of metallic nanostructures with the tip of an atomic force microscope

• Christian Obermair,
• Marina Kress,
• Andreas Wagner and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 824–830, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.92

• with the tip of an AFM [12]. In the semiconductor industry, mechano-electrochemical processes are frequently used in the form of mechano-electrochemical polishing. While this is only a macroscopic method with very poor lateral resolution, the tip of an AFM allows the site-selective control of

Effect of spherical Au nanoparticles on nanofriction and wear reduction in dry and liquid environments

• Dave Maharaj and
• Bharat Bhushan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 759–772, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.85

• amount of material removed at a load of 20 µN after 100 cycles would indicate that the wear mechanism is most likely due to breaking and removal of sharp asperities, as seen in adhesive wear [25], and eventual polishing of the surface as evidenced by the smoother height profile as the number of cycles

Nano-structuring, surface and bulk modification with a focused helium ion beam

• Daniel Fox,
• Yanhui Chen,
• Colm C. Faulkner and
• Hongzhou Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 579–585, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.67

• order to investigate this polishing effect further we used the HIM to modify a TiO2 TEM lamella prepared by FIB lift-out. We called this sample 2. Figure 3a is a HAADF image of the sample after FIB lift-out, gallium contamination is observed as the small white spots on the image, the background noise is

• focused helium ion beam can modify a surface’s physical properties, such as crystallinity, roughness and thickness, in a controlled manner. 35 keV helium ions were used to produce a surface which was smoother than could be achieved by 30 keV FIB. Low energy FIB polishing can also improve the lamella

• quality; however the HIM polishing step has many benefits over the relatively broad beam of low energy FIB due to the its small probe size and the ion species used. The helium ion beam is non-contaminating and can even be used to selectively remove surface contaminants, such as the gallium contamination

Macromolecular shape and interactions in layer-by-layer assemblies within cylindrical nanopores

• Thomas D. Lazzara,
• K. H. Aaron Lau,
• Wolfgang Knoll,
• Andreas Janshoff and
• Claudia Steinem

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 475–484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.54

• , according to a previously reported technique [49]. Briefly, AAO membrane thin films were fabricated by electrochemical anodization of aluminum foils after electrochemical polishing. Polished aluminum foils were anodized for 2 h in 0.3 M oxalic acid, 1 °C at 40 V. The alumina was removed with H3PO4 (5 vol

Glassy carbon electrodes modified with multiwalled carbon nanotubes for the determination of ascorbic acid by square-wave voltammetry

• Sushil Kumar and
• Victoria Vicente-Beckett

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 388–396, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.45

• trace alumina particles from the electrode surface, and then air dried. This cleaning procedure was applied before all voltammetric measurements were carried out. The platinum-wire auxiliary electrode was typically polished with a CarbiMet fine-grit polishing disc (Buehler, Lake Bluff, IL, USA) to

Nano-FTIR chemical mapping of minerals in biological materials

• Sergiu Amarie,
• Paul Zaslansky,
• Yusuke Kajihara,
• Erika Griesshaber,
• Wolfgang W. Schmahl and
• Fritz Keilmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 312–323, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.35

• (Figure 7c), in which the intensity is known to be a measure of the mineral density, averaged over ca. 1 µm depth [39]. The high-density peritubular rims produce the strongest infrared scattering. As a consequence of their higher resistance to polishing, they protrude approximately 50 nm from the

• and polishing procedures are of little consequence: Height variations of 100 nm do not change the off-resonant infrared amplitude (Figure 2) nor the resonant response in amplitude and phase, as demonstrated for example by the repeatability of the carbonate resonance spectra within the sample region

• preparation artifact. The material could be a modification of materials in the organic matrix; however, this is not highlighted in the infrared images. Nevertheless, it is clear that the particles could not simply be dried polishing material (Struers OP-A) since this shows a weak FTIR absorption at 1073 cm−1

Quantitative multichannel NC-AFM data analysis of graphene growth on SiC(0001)

• Christian Held,
• Thomas Seyller and
• Roland Bennewitz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 179–185, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.19

• six bilayers of SiC(0001) each with a height of 0.25 nm. Wafers of 6H-SiC(0001) were purchased from SiCrystal AG. Polishing scratches were removed by hydrogen etching (grade 5.0, p = 1 bar, T = 1550 °C, t = 15 min) [1]. After insertion into UHV and heating to 120 °C for 10 h to remove adsorbed water

• ., wafer manufacturer, polishing, and hydrogen etching, were used for the graphenization in an argon atmosphere at 1650 °C following the procedure describe in [1]. After graphenization the sample was introduced into the UHV chamber and heated for 10 h at 120 °C in order to remove adsorbed water. A direct

Nanoscaled alloy formation from self-assembled elemental Co nanoparticles on top of Pt films

• Luyang Han,
• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Johannes Biskupek,
• Kai Fauth,
• Ute Kaiser and
• Paul Ziemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 473–485, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.51

• , namely mechanical grinding and polishing followed by low angle Ar+-ion etching. Bright-field TEM and aberration corrected HRTEM images were taken on a FEI Titan TEM equipped with a Cs imaging corrector. Scanning TEM and energy dispersive X-ray spectra (EDX) were acquired on a FEI Titan equipped with an

Effect of large mechanical stress on the magnetic properties of embedded Fe nanoparticles

• Srinivasa Saranu,
• Sören Selve,
• Ute Kaiser,
• Luyang Han,
• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Paul Ziemann and
• Ulrich Herr

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 268–275, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.31

• film on top using thermal evaporation. Ta foil of 200 µm thickness was used as a substrate for the stress application. One side of the Ta foil was polished to an RMS roughness of less than 5 nm using chemo-mechanical polishing. The other side of the Ta foil was coated with 100 nm of palladium, which

Moisture harvesting and water transport through specialized micro-structures on the integument of lizards

• Philipp Comanns,
• Christian Effertz,
• Florian Hischen,
• Konrad Staudt,
• Wolfgang Böhme and
• Werner Baumgartner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 204–214, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.24

• surfaces allow for more condensation when compared with unstructured ones. Even an unspecific roughness introduced by polishing paper (roughness, Ra ≈ 3 µm) increased the amount of water, although not significantly (p = 0.070). The replica of a non-moisture harvesting lizard Scincus scincus exhibits no