Review on nanoparticles and nanostructured materials: history, sources, toxicity and regulations

• Jaison Jeevanandam,
• Ahmed Barhoum,
• Yen S. Chan,
• Alain Dufresne and
• Michael K. Danquah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1050–1074, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.98

• “Nanotechnology: nature’s gift or scientists’ brainchild?” [19]. The astronauts and aeronautic instruments are severely threatened by cosmic dust [58]. Lunar dust is smaller compared to typical terrestrial dust, with excess sub-micrometer particles. Lunar dust, with a few magnetic NPs, can settle on the space

• nanocomposite. Nacre is designed by alternating micrometer-sized and sub-micrometer CaCO3 aragonite platelets, which are separated by a thin layer of bio-macromolecular “glue”. Enhanced stiffness, impact resistance, strength, and toughness are some of the mechanical properties that enable using nacre’s unique

Perfusion double-channel micropipette probes for oxygen flux mapping with single-cell resolution

• Yang Gao,
• Bin Li,
• Riju Singhal,
• Adam Fontecchio,
• Ben Pelleg,
• Zulfiya Orynbayeva,
• Yury Gogotsi and
• Gary Friedman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 850–860, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.79

• paper we focused on theta pipettes with micrometer-scale tips (Figure 1b), which would cover an average cell area to maximize the signal intensity. However, pipettes with sub-micrometer tips (Figure 1c) could be produced to obtain spatial resolution at subcellular levels. It is also worth mentioning

Surface-plasmon-enhanced ultraviolet emission of Au-decorated ZnO structures for gas sensing and photocatalytic devices

• T. Anh Thu Do,
• Truong Giang Ho,
• Thu Hoai Bui,
• Quang Ngan Pham,
• Hong Thai Giang,
• Thi Thu Do,
• Duc Van Nguyen and
• Dai Lam Tran

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 771–779, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.70

• , 790000, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Vietnam Graduate University of Science and Technology, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Caugiay, 100000, Hanoi, Vietnam 10.3762/bjnano.9.70 Abstract Pure and Au-decorated sub-micrometer ZnO spheres were successfully grown on glass substrates by

• of plasmonic Au nanoparticles (NPs) on the ZnO film. Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) spectra indicated that a surface plasmonic effect exists with a fast rate of charge transfer from Au nanoparticles to the sub-micrometer ZnO sphere, which suggested the strong possibility of the use of the

• revealed that ZnO sub-micrometer spheres were deposited on the glass substrates and Au-decorated ZnO nanostructures were confirmed. Using photoluminescence (PL) spectra and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) measurements, we investigate the SPR characteristics and ZnO exciton peaks, which complement

Study of the vertically aligned in-plane switching liquid crystal mode in microscale periodic electric fields

• Artur R. Geivandov,
• Mikhail I. Barnik,
• Irina V. Kasyanova and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 11–19, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.2

• to sub-micrometer scale) influences the switching speed, especially the LC relaxation to the initial homeotropic state. We have found that there are two types of the relaxation: a fast relaxation caused by the surface LC sub-layer deformed in the vicinity of the electrodes and the slower relaxation

• speeding up the VA-IPS mode. Recent advances in photolithography allow for the use of sub-micrometer spatial resolution in electrode patterning. The decrease of the electrode size down to the micrometer and sub-micrometer scale opens up new possibilities for the application of the VA-IPS LC mode. When the

• is defined by the thickness of the LC layer, and is significantly higher (a few tens of milliseconds for the same LC layer thickness of 3–4 μm). Of course, it is curious to know how short the relaxation can be if we further decrease the electrode gratings period to the micrometer and sub-micrometer

Patterning of supported gold monolayers via chemical lift-off lithography

• Liane S. Slaughter,
• Kevin M. Cheung,
• Sami Kaappa,
• Huan H. Cao,
• Qing Yang,
• Thomas D. Young,
• Andrew C. Serino,
• Sami Malola,
• Jana M. Olson,
• Stephan Link,
• Hannu Häkkinen,
• Anne M. Andrews and
• Paul S. Weiss

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2648–2661, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.265

• functionality without affecting the flexibility or transparency of PDMS. Incorporating chemical functionality onto PDMS will be useful for integrating sensing functions into microfluidic devices [68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80]. Compared with many techniques used to impart sub-micrometer

Tailoring the nanoscale morphology of HKUST-1 thin films via codeposition and seeded growth

• Landon J. Brower,
• Lauren K. Gentry,
• Amanda L. Napier and
• Mary E. Anderson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2307–2314, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.230

• permit the formation of sub-micrometer, conformal films. Conclusion Films formed by codeposition were similar to those formed by LBL in that they were composed of nanocrystallites and were not conformal films produced by a van der Merwe growth mechanism. However, the Volmer–Weber growth mechanism (with

Magnetic properties of optimized cobalt nanospheres grown by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) on cantilever tips

• Soraya Sangiao,
• César Magén,
• Darius Mofakhami,
• Grégoire de Loubens and
• José María De Teresa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2106–2115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.210

• investigation of spin dynamics at the nanoscale [41]. This near field scanning probe technique allows magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with nanometer spatial resolution and extreme spin sensitivity [42] and the investigation of spin waves at the sub-micrometer scale [43][44][45]. In these applications, very

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

• et al. applied a hydrothermal synthesis assisted by 1,2-diaminopropane as an SCA and obtained crystallized α-Fe2O3 nanorods with high and controllable aspect ratios [22]. Lin et al. demonstrated that such α-Fe2O3 nanorods outperform sub-micrometer and micrometer-sized particles in terms of

Bi-layer sandwich film for antibacterial catheters

• Gerhard Franz,
• Florian Schamberger,
• Hamideh Heidari Zare,
• Sara Felicitas Bröskamp and
• Dieter Jocham

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1982–2001, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.199

• been topic of our recent research [19][41]. However, for these low thicknesses, the Tollens’ reaction does not generate a continuous film on the rough surface of the catheters. Morphology In the following, we focus on these sub-micrometer layers on relatively rough surfaces. After a deposition time of

• lead to unwanted reactions are reduced. These unwanted reactions lead to polymerization and grain formation in the gas phase. Eventually, these grains arrive at the surface, which is clearly revealed by SEM inspection (Figure 17a). Properties of sub-micrometer layers As our interest is focused on very

Collembola cuticles and the three-phase line tension

• Håkon Gundersen,
• Hans Petter Leinaas and
• Christian Thaulow

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1714–1722, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.172

• of and the mechanism behind natural water-repellent surfaces is therefore of great interest beyond the field of biology. Many natural surfaces feature hierarchical structures, which are difficult to reproduce biomimetically. Collembola cuticles feature surface structuring on a single, sub-micrometer

• equation, which underestimates the contact angle of Collembola cuticles [5] and sub-micrometer-sized surface structures in general [16]. The Cassie–Baxter equation also fails to predict changes in contact angle without an accompanying change in surface structure, such as the seasonal change in wetting

• including a three-phase contact line term in the equation for the apparent contact angle, Zheng et al. [16] were able to predict the size-scale dependency of the apparent contact angle for sub-micrometer surface structures. The effect of the three-phase line tension on the apparent contact angle is

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

• nanoparticle stock solution, leading to the formation of Au@Co. The structure and morphology of the Au@Co nanochains were characterized by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2, where sub-micrometer-sized chains are readily

Measuring adhesion on rough surfaces using atomic force microscopy with a liquid probe

• Juan V. Escobar,
• Cristina Garza and
• Rolando Castillo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 813–825, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.84

• nanometer-sized peaks commonly used for the determination of AFM tip sharpness and a multi-scaled rough diamond surface containing sub-micrometer protrusions. Measurements are carried out in a nitrogen atmosphere to avoid water capillary interactions. We obtain information about the average force of

• order of 200 nm. Nevertheless, observation of the pyramid surfaces with AFM reveals that the tops are decorated with ca. 100 nm high protrusions. Figure 3 presents the sub-micrometer protrusions decorating the pyramids of the multi-scaled rough surfaces, and their typical average height as a function of

• analysis just for the sub-group with the most data points aligned along a straight line in Figure 9c (dashed line). Once again, the unit force corresponds to the interaction between a single sub-micrometer protrusion and the drop, and in this case it is equal to Fadh/protrusion = 2.8 nN (r = 0.994). This

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

• the grain sizes are usually in the sub-micrometer scale (>200 nm) and numerous dislocations exist in grains [28]. The microstructural observations revealed that the GNS layers on metals processed by surface mechanical attrition treatments (SMAT) are porosity-free, and the mean grain sizes are on the

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

• and morphology and well-defined surface chemistry is largely unexplored for energetic materials at the sub-micrometer scale and smaller. The criteria that are advantageous for new energetic materials include the following: high decomposition temperature low sensitivity no phase transitions under

• also improved by Zhang and Weeks [9] due to the formation of sub-micrometer spheres. Recently, Comet et al. [10] proved that energetic nanocomposites can easily replace the hazardous primary explosives to initiate a secondary explosive: 500 nm diameter n-RDX from SFE was mixed with a nanoscale thermite

• extraction system (ASES), sorted among the supercritical processes for a better understanding. Melting and milling processes for producing sub-micrometer energetic materials require one or more additional liquids, therefore these techniques are classified as wet methods. Wet production methods

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

• nebulized precursor solution, and on the application of ultrasonic CSP grown Sb2S3 as an absorber in a hybrid solar cell. The use of ultrasonic CSP resulted in the growth of layers that consist of sub-micrometer single-phase crystalline Sb2S3 particulates that cover the TiO2 substrate homogeneously in case

Nano- and microstructured materials for in vitro studies of the physiology of vascular cells

• Alexandra M. Greiner,
• Adria Sales,
• Hao Chen,
• Sarah A. Biela,
• Dieter Kaufmann and
• Ralf Kemkemer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1620–1641, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.155

• experiments in cell biology for the last two decades [53][54]. Photolithography uses light, a photomask and a photosensitive material (photoresist) to create a pattern in the micrometer (or sub-micrometer) range (Figure 4B). The thickness of the layer of photoresist will determine the height of the structures

Frog tongue surface microstructures: functional and evolutionary patterns

• Thomas Kleinteich and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 893–903, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.81

• spatial resolution of our approach is more likely in the range of three to four micrometers. Structures that are in the sub-micrometer range, such as the hair-like extrusions on top of the filiform papillae in Megophrys nasuta, therefore cannot be detected with the micro-CT. The absence of lacunae in

A scanning probe microscope for magnetoresistive cantilevers utilizing a nested scanner design for large-area scans

• Tobias Meier,
• Alexander Förste,
• Ali Tavassolizadeh,
• Karsten Rott,
• Dirk Meyners,
• Roland Gröger,
• Günter Reiss,
• Eckhard Quandt,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 451–461, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.46

• many cases, the simultaneous investigation of small features such as transistors (on the nanometer or sub-micrometer scale) and much larger features such as chip architectures (on the millimeter scale) have to be imaged. An example of such structures are microelectronic integrated circuits. Imaging

In vitro and in vivo interactions of selected nanoparticles with rodent serum proteins and their consequences in biokinetics

• Wolfgang G. Kreyling,
• Stefanie Fertsch-Gapp,
• Martin Schäffler,
• Blair D. Johnston,
• Nadine Haberl,
• Christian Pfeiffer,
• Jörg Diendorf,
• Carsten Schleh,
• Stephanie Hirn,
• Manuela Semmler-Behnke,
• Matthias Epple and
• Wolfgang J. Parak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1699–1711, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.180

• proteins studied. The hydrophobic NP, PS-Plain and Printex 90 show much higher NP-mass based BImass for all three proteins than the hydrophilic PS-NP. Interestingly, the mass-based BImass of Printex G with all three proteins is also low because of the very small surface area of the incubated sub-micrometer

Current state of laser synthesis of metal and alloy nanoparticles as ligand-free reference materials for nano-toxicological assays

• Christoph Rehbock,
• Jurij Jakobi,
• Lisa Gamrad,
• Selina van der Meer,
• Daniela Tiedemann,
• Ulrike Taylor,
• Wilfried Kues,
• Detlef Rath and
• Stephan Barcikowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1523–1541, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.165

• ≈30 nm. However, PLML primarily yields particles in a submicrometer size range from 200–400 nm (sub-micrometer spheres, SMS), which could be obtained from multiple metals [75][76] and metal oxides [77][78][79]. In case of gold, SMS were primarily obtained from citrate-capped nanoparticles [74], while

Optical modeling-assisted characterization of dye-sensitized solar cells using TiO₂ nanotube arrays as photoanodes

• Jung-Ho Yun,
• Il Ku Kim,
• Yun Hau Ng,
• Lianzhou Wang and
• Rose Amal

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 895–902, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.102

• photogenerated electron charges for DSSCs performance, can be controlled by the structure and morphology of TiO2. For instance, roughness-increased surface-structured TiO2 photoelectrode layers, composed of sub-micrometer sized particulate, 2D-structured, or 1D-structured TiO2, can improve the light harvesting

Site-selective growth of surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks on self-assembled monolayer patterns prepared by AFM nanografting

• Tatjana Ladnorg,
• Alexander Welle,
• Stefan Heißler,
• Christof Wöll and
• Hartmut Gliemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 638–648, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.71

• recently for the case of HKUST-1 grown on a 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid- (MHDA-) based SAM pattern created by µCP [18][21]. The feature sizes that can be achieved with this method, however, are limited and the preparation of sub-micrometer sized patterns is challenging or even impossible for µCP. The

Revealing thermal effects in the electronic transport through irradiated atomic metal point contacts

• Bastian Kopp,
• Zhiwei Yi,
• Daniel Benner,
• Fang-Qing Xie,
• Christian Obermair,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Johannes Boneberg,
• Paul Leiderer and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 703–711, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.80

• advantage compared to the GCQS in Figure 1, the location where the contact is formed is now well-defined on a sub-micrometer length scale. This allows one to determine the spatially resolved response of the junction with high resolution. As Figure 7a shows, also for such samples a light-induced signal is

Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopic imaging of patterned thiol monolayers

• Johannes Stadler,
• Thomas Schmid,
• Lothar Opilik,
• Phillip Kuhn,
• Petra S. Dittrich and
• Renato Zenobi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 509–515, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.55

• printing stamps was fabricated by standard photolithography [14][38][39]. Briefly, a positive resist (AZ1518) was spin-coated to a height of 2.1 ± 0.1 μm onto a silicon wafer, exposed through a sub-micrometer resolution chrome mask and developed. After overnight silanization, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS