Recent progress in magnetic applications for micro- and nanorobots

• Ke Xu,
• Shuang Xu and
• Fanan Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 744–755, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.58

• . The nanoreactor was assembled in the presence of a target mRNA analyte and a magnetic field to form a biocompartment enclosed by the polymeric brush. Due to the polymer brush, MaBiDz exhibited excellent properties such as stability, specificity, and semi-permeability. It provides a suitable

Identifying the nature of surface chemical modification for directed self-assembly of block copolymers

• Laura Evangelio,
• Federico Gramazio,
• Matteo Lorenzoni,
• Michaela Gorgoi,
• Francisco Miguel Espinosa,
• Ricardo García,
• Francesc Pérez-Murano and
• Jordi Fraxedas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1972–1981, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.198

• of the polymer brush layer were analysed, we investigated the effect of the functionalization upon exposure to oxygen plasma. Figure 3c shows the C 1s HAXPES spectrum taken with 2020 eV photons of the sample cooled in nitrogen after the oxygen plasma treatment. The comparison with Figure 3a evidences

• essentially hydroxylation of the surface. Thus, the combination between optimal process conditions for grafting the polymer brush layer and an adequate chemical functionalization by oxygen plasma exposure leads to the possibility to generate efficient chemical patterns for guiding the self-assembly of the BCP

Methods for preparing polymer-decorated single exchange-biased magnetic nanoparticles for application in flexible polymer-based films

• Laurence Ourry,
• Delphine Toulemon,
• Souad Ammar and
• Fayna Mammeri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 408–417, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.43

• polymer brush degrafting, Dr. Philippe Decorse for the XPS measurements and M. Ludovic Mouton for recording the TEM images. The ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) and CGI (Commissariat à l'Investissement d'Avenir) are gratefully acknowledged for their financial support of this study through Labex SEAM

Chemical bath deposition of textured and compact zinc oxide thin films on vinyl-terminated polystyrene brushes

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Caroline G. Hofmeister,
• Peter Lindemann,
• Cheng Huang,
• Johannes Baier,
• Andreas Leineweber,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Christof Wöll,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 102–110, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.12

• polystyrene brush on the deposition of ZnO thin films under moderate conditions. On a non-modified SiOx surface, island growth is observed, whereas the polymer brush induces homogeneous film growth. A chemical modification of the polystyrene brushes during the mineralization process occurs, which enables

• measurements as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Infrared spectroscopy (IR) measurements were used to investigate the polystyrene brushes before and after modification. Keywords: bioinspired synthesis; polymer brush; template activation

Dynamic nanoindentation by instrumented nanoindentation and force microscopy: a comparative review

• Sidney R. Cohen and
• Estelle Kalfon-Cohen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 815–833, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.93

• except for those caused by the compression of the sample under the tip. Therefore, this method would not work on a soft polymer brush with ill-defined interface. For the resonance modes, system response and phase shift are non-negligible in air. Yuya et al. removed the internal beam damping by evaluating

Colloidal lithography for fabricating patterned polymer-brush microstructures

• Tao Chen,
• Debby P. Chang,
• Rainer Jordan and
• Stefan Zauscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 397–403, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.46

• -initiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) to fabricate patterned polymer-brush microstructures. The advantages of the CL technique over other lithographic approaches for the fabrication of patterned polymer brushes are (i) that it can be carried out with commercially available colloidal

• particles at a relatively low cost, (ii) that no complex equipment is required to create the patterned templates with micro- and nanoscale features, and (iii) that polymer brush features are controlled simply by changing the size or chemical functionality of the microspheres or the substrate. Keywords

• separation of biological molecules [14][15][16]. They can be grown by surface-initiated polymerization from surface-confined initiator templates, as fabricated by various lithographic approaches. Although a range of strategies for polymer brush patterning, including photolithography [17], electron-beam

Sensing surface PEGylation with microcantilevers

• Natalija Backmann,
• Natascha Kappeler,
• Thomas Braun,
• François Huber,
• Hans-Peter Lang,
• Christoph Gerber and
• Roderick Y. H. Lim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 3–13, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.2

• reversible collapse when switching between good and poor solvent conditions, respectively. Keywords: AFM; cantilever sensor; polyethylene glycol; polymer brush; reversible collapse; static mode; Introduction Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is often used as a protein-resistant surface layer in biomedicine and

• or steric repulsion of a polymer brush as described by the Alexander–de Gennes theory (in a limited range 0.2 < D/L < 0.9 [10][31][32]), where F is the measured force (as a function of D), kB is Boltzmann’s constant, T is the absolute temperature, Rtip is the radius of the AFM-cantilever tip, L is

• polymer brush are less likely obtained by the “grafting to” approach [42]. AFM images of the PEGylated Au surface taken under different solvent conditions reinforce the interpretation that a brush-like layer has formed. In PBS buffer (good solvent), we find that the surface topography is strongly