Evaluation of preparation methods for suspended nano-objects on substrates for dimensional measurements by atomic force microscopy

• Petra Fiala,
• Daniel Göhler,
• Benno Wessely,
• Michael Stintz,
• Giovanni Mattia Lazzerini and
• Andrew Yacoot

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1774–1785, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.179

• Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW, UK 10.3762/bjnano.8.179 Abstract Dimensional measurements on nano-objects by atomic force microscopy (AFM) require samples of safely fixed and well individualized particles with a suitable surface-specific particle number on flat and clean

Process-specific mechanisms of vertically oriented graphene growth in plasmas

• Subrata Ghosh,
• Shyamal R. Polaki,
• Niranjan Kumar,
• Sankarakumar Amirthapandian,
• Mohamed Kamruddin and
• Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1658–1670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.166

• -emission scanning electron microscopy (Supra 55, Carl Zeiss, Germany). High-resolution transmission electron spectroscopy (Libra 200 FE, Carl Zeiss, Germany) was used to investigate the microstructure of the films. A micro-Raman spectrometer (Renishaw inVia, UK) was used to evaluate the structural

Uptake and intracellular accumulation of diamond nanoparticles – a metabolic and cytotoxic study

• Antonín Brož,
• Lucie Bačáková,
• Pavla Štenclová,
• Alexander Kromka and
• Štěpán Potocký

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1649–1657, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.165

• diamond nanoparticles The size of the ND particles and their zeta potential was determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements in water at 25 °C using a Nano-ZetaSizer (Malvern, UK) equipped with an He-Ne laser. A separate disposable folded capillary cell was used for each set of ND

• viability The cell viability upon exposure to the NDs was evaluated using the SAOS-2 human osteoblastic cell line (European Collection of Cell Cultures, Salisbury, UK, Cat. No. 89050205). The SAOS-2 cell line was used for biocompatibility experiments based on cell anchorage dependency and homogeneity. Two

• , Japan) with phase contrast installed. The microscope was equipped with a cell incubation chamber (Solent Scientific, UK) with humidity regulation (95%), controlled temperature (37 °C) and CO2 concentration (5%). The cells were photographed for 72 h at 2 min intervals for the first 6 h and thereafter at

A nanocomplex of C₆₀ fullerene with cisplatin: design, characterization and toxicity

• Svitlana Prylutska,
• Svitlana Politenkova,
• Kateryna Afanasieva,
• Volodymyr Korolovych,
• Kateryna Bogutska,
• Andriy Sivolob,
• Larysa Skivka,
• Maxim Evstigneev,
• Viktor Kostjukov,
• Yuriy Prylutskyy and
• Uwe Ritter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1494–1501, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.149

• determined using the image analysis software programs Comet Assay IV (Perspective Instruments, UK) and CometScore (TriTec Corp., USA). Cell-death assay Apoptosis was assessed by staining cells with Annexin V–fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and counterstaining with propidium iodide (PI) with the use Annexin

Formation of ferromagnetic molecular thin films from blends by annealing

• Peter Robaschik,
• Ye Ma,
• Salahud Din and
• Sandrine Heutz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1469–1475, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.146

• and SQUID measurements, respectively. We thank the Research Council UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, grants number EP/F039948/1 and EP/F04139X/1) for financial support. P. R. and S. H. thank Kurt J. Lesker Company and Imperial College London for funding.

Development of polycationic amphiphilic cyclodextrin nanoparticles for anticancer drug delivery

• Gamze Varan,
• Juan M. Benito,
• Carmen Ortiz Mellet and
• Erem Bilensoy

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1457–1468, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.145

• mL ultrapure water using the conditions previously given. Mean particle size distribution and surface charge The mean particle diameter (nm), PDI and zeta potential (mV) of amphiphilic CD nanoparticles were determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS) (NanoZS, Malvern Instruments, UK). All

Cationic PEGylated polycaprolactone nanoparticles carrying post-operation docetaxel for glioma treatment

• Cem Varan and
• Erem Bilensoy

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1446–1456, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.144

• Malvern NanoZS (Malvern Instruments, UK). All formulations were measured at a scattering angle of 173° at a temperature 25 °C (n = 3). The surface charge of the nanoparticles was determined by using a disposable capillary cell with the Malvern Zetasizer Nano ZS at room temperature (n = 3). Physical

Low uptake of silica nanoparticles in Caco-2 intestinal epithelial barriers

• Dong Ye,
• Mattia Bramini,
• Delyan R. Hristov,
• Sha Wan,
• Anna Salvati,
• Christoffer Åberg and
• Kenneth A. Dawson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1396–1406, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.141

• serum (FBS) in Hank's balanced salt solution (HBSS) buffer (with 25 mM 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid (HEPES), pH 7.4) at 25 °C, using a Malvern Zetasizer Nano ZS90 (Worcestershire, UK) in order to measure the hydrodynamic diameter by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The 150 nm

• optimized for size range analysis 0.03–1 µm). A 476 nm polyvinyl chloride (PVC; Analytik UK) commercial standard was used to calibrate the instrument before each measurement. Each gradient was checked by running the PVC standard as a sample and comparing to a database control. 100 µL of standard was

• a CSU-X1 spinning disk unit (Yokogawa Electric corporation), an iXon electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) camera (Andor, Belfast, UK) and an inverted E-clipse microscope (Nikon, Tokyo, Japan). SiO2-NPs were excited with a 488 nm laser line (emission signal collected using a band pass

Evaluation of quantum dot conjugated antibodies for immunofluorescent labelling of cellular targets

• Jennifer E. Francis,
• David Mason and
• Raphaël Lévy

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1238–1249, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.125

• commercial Qdot-Abs is non-specific labelling and the formation of aggregates, which may introduce artifacts and lead to misinterpretation of false positive results [12][13]. Here, we focus on the specificity of commercially available Qdot 625 conjugated antibodies (Thermo Fisher Scientific, UK), with an

• the associated accessibility to targets was the reason behind the inability to label complex cytosolic and nuclear structures. Although, the manufacturer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, UK) has approximated that Qdot 625 (17 nm) has an overall hydrodynamic size of 30 nm with a couple of antibodies per Qdot

• antibody (Figure S15 in Supporting Information File 1), with the similar results obtained as for Qdot 625-Ab. An alternative Qdot 625 conjugated to the biotin-binding protein streptavidin (Qdot-Streptavidin) (Thermo Fisher Scientific, UK) was also evaluated. To test the specificity of Qdot-Streptavidin for

ZnO nanoparticles sensitized by CuInZn_xS_2+x quantum dots as highly efficient solar light driven photocatalysts

• Florian Donat,
• Serge Corbel,
• Halima Alem,
• Steve Pontvianne,
• Lavinia Balan,
• Ghouti Medjahdi and
• Raphaël Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1080–1093, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.110

• acquired at a take-off angle of 90° (angle between the sample surface and photoemission direction). During acquisition, the pass energy was set to 500 eV for wide scans and to 100 eV for high-resolution spectra. CASA XPS software (Casa Software Ltd, Teignmouth, UK, http://www.casaxps.com) was used for all

Vapor-phase-synthesized fluoroacrylate polymer thin films: thermal stability and structural properties

• Paul Christian and
• Anna Maria Coclite

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 933–942, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.95

• situ temperature-dependent spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements were performed on a Woollam M-2000 ellipsometer (J.A. Woollam Co., USA), equipped with a THMS600 temperature stage (Linkam, UK) under nitrogen atmosphere. The samples were investigated in the temperature range between 10 and 150 °C at a

Silicon microgrooves for contact guidance of human aortic endothelial cells

• Sara Fernández-Castillejo,
• Pilar Formentín,
• Úrsula Catalán,
• Josep Pallarès,
• Lluís F. Marsal and
• Rosa Solà

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 675–681, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.72

• medium supplemented with 2% (v/v) low serum growth supplement, 10 mg/mL gentamicin, 0.25 mg/mL amphotericin B (all from Life Technologies; Paisley, UK), 100 U/mL penicillin and 100 mg/mL of streptomycin (Laclinics, Spain). Cells were incubated at 37 °C in a humidified incubator (Heracell 150; Madrid

Calculating free energies of organic molecules on insulating substrates

• Julian Gaberle,
• David Z. Gao and
• Alexander L. Shluger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 667–674, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.71

• is supported by EPSRC, UK and JAIST, Japan. We acknowledge the use of the ARCHER high-performance computing facilities via our membership to the U.K. HPC Materials Chemistry Consortium, which is funded by EPSRC (grant EP/L000202). DZG acknowledges the use of the Serenity computing cluster and support

α-((4-Cyanobenzoyl)oxy)-ω-methyl poly(ethylene glycol): a new stabilizer for silver nanoparticles

• Jana Lutze,
• Miguel A. Bañares,
• Marcos Pita,
• Andrea Haase,
• Andreas Luch and
• Andreas Taubert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 627–635, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.67

• the zeta potential of the SNPs were determined with a Zetasizer ZS and the Zetasizer 7.1 Software (Malvern Instruments, UK). For DLS experiments the samples were diluted with DI water (18.2 MΩ) and placed in disposable plastic cuvettes. For each sample five measurements consisting of ten runs of ten

Copper atomic-scale transistors

• Fangqing Xie,
• Maryna N. Kavalenka,
• Moritz Röger,
• Daniel Albrecht,
• Hendrik Hölscher,
• Jürgen Leuthold and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 530–538, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.57

• photoresist film using direct laser writing (DWL 66, Heidelberg Instruments, Germany), and then developed. Reactive ion etching (RIE, Plasmalab100, Oxford Instruments, UK) was used to etch the Cr/Au film in the developed areas (120 W, 30 sccm Ar, 10 mTorr, 30 min) in order to isolate the microelectrodes from

Study of the surface properties of ZnO nanocolumns used for thin-film solar cells

• Neda Neykova,
• Jiri Stuchlik,
• Karel Hruska,
• Ales Poruba,
• Zdenek Remes and
• Ognen Pop-Georgievski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 446–451, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.48

• capacitively coupled radio frequency plasma reactor KIII [24] at 20 W, 1 mbar for 1, 5, 10 and 25 min at room temperature [25][26][27]. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) XPS measurements were performed using a K-Alpha+ XPS spectrometer (ThermoFisher Scientific, UK) operating at a base pressure of 1.0 × 10

Nanoscale isoindigo-carriers: self-assembly and tunable properties

• Tatiana N. Pashirova,
• Andrei V. Bogdanov,
• Lenar I. Musin,
• Julia K. Voronina,
• Irek R. Nizameev,
• Marsil K. Kadirov,
• Vladimir F. Mironov,
• Lucia Ya. Zakharova,
• Shamil K. Latypov and
• Oleg G. Sinyashin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 313–324, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.34

• , Germany). Quartz cuvettes with a 1 cm cell path were used. Dynamic light scattering Dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements were performed using the Malvern Instrument Zetasizer Nano (Worcestershire, UK). The measured autocorrelation functions were analysed by Malvern DTS software, applying the second

• inside dialysis bag was withdrawn and assayed by determining the size and zeta potential using the Malvern Instrument Zetasizer Nano (Worcestershire, UK). Structures of isatin (1a–h), isoindigo derivatives 2a–h, 3 and anionic (sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS), cationic (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, CTAB

Comparison of four functionalization methods of gold nanoparticles for enhancing the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)

• Paula Ciaurriz,
• Fátima Fernández,
• Edurne Tellechea,
• Jose F. Moran and
• Aaron C. Asensio

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 244–253, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.27

• maintained until the flask reached room temperature. AuNPs and conjugates were characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) using a zeta potential analysis system (Zetasizer Nano Z, Malvern Instrumentd, Worcestershire, UK), field emission scanning electron microscope (Carl Zeiss) and UV–vis

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering of self-assembled thiol monolayers and supported lipid membranes on thin anodic porous alumina

• Marco Salerno,
• Amirreza Shayganpour,
• Barbara Salis and
• Silvia Dante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 74–81, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.8

• ≈500 nm thick Al layer was first coated on a silicon wafer by an electron-beam evaporation system PVD75 (Kurt J. Lesker Ltd., UK) working at a base pressure of 10−6 Torr with a deposition rate of 0.5–1 Å/s. tAPA was fabricated in a single-step (≈15 min) anodization performed at 110 V in 0.4 M

• lipid mixture (namely POPC/POPS) AT was used, which becomes positive in aqueous solution because of the terminal amino group. SERS measurements SERS measurements were performed with a micro-Raman spectrometer inVia (Renishaw, UK) equipped with the software program WiRE 3.2. We used for excitation a

Structural and tribometric characterization of biomimetically inspired synthetic "insect adhesives"

• Matthias W. Speidel,
• Malte Kleemeier,
• Andreas Hartwig,
• Klaus Rischka,
• Angelika Ellermann,
• Rolf Daniels and
• Oliver Betz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 45–63, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.6

Grazing-incidence optical magnetic recording with super-resolution

• Gunther Scheunert,
• Sidney. R. Cohen,
• René Kullock,
• Ryan McCarron,
• Katya Rechev,
• Ifat Kaplan-Ashiri,
• Ora Bitton,
• Paul Dawson,
• Bert Hecht and
• Dan Oron

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 28–37, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.4

• Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel Department of Physics, University of Würzburg, 97070 Würzburg, Germany Centre for Nanostructured Media, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK 10.3762/bjnano.8.4 Abstract Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is often considered

Streptavidin-coated gold nanoparticles: critical role of oligonucleotides on stability and fractal aggregation

• Roberta D'Agata,
• Pasquale Palladino and
• Giuseppe Spoto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1–11, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.1

• genomic DNA [13], were purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. Streptavidin from Streptomyces avidinii, provided in lyophilized form in 10 mM PBS, pH 7.4, was purchased from Invitrogen (Italy). Mixed cellulose ester membrane filters were purchased from Whatman (UK). Phosphate buffered saline (PBS

• a Zetasizer Nano ZS ZEN3600 (Malvern Instruments, Malvern, UK) instrument equipped with a 4 mW He–Ne laser operating at 633 nm and an avalanche photodiode detector (APD) (quantum efficiency >50% at 633 nm). Measurements were performed at 25 °C by using aqueous AuNP solutions filtered with a 0.45 µm

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

• Niall Crawford Thomas Endlein Jonathan T. Pham Mathis Riehle W. Jon P. Barnes Centre for Cell Engineering, Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany Max Planck Institute for Polymer

• surface made from a monolayer of 1125 µm glass beads (Ballotini beads, Jencons, VWR International, Leicestershire, UK) and a control surface consisting of a glass plate. Thus, whilst the middle eight of these surfaces had identical surface energies (untested here), the roughest surface differed in both

• using a low viscosity resin (TAAB laboratories equipment Ltd, UK). The use of resin provided a hard, transparent material that mimicked the sandpapers’ structure by accurately conforming before setting. Their transparency allowed us to measure pad contact area optically. Ra values for both the originals

From iron coordination compounds to metal oxide nanoparticles

• Mihail Iacob,
• Carmen Racles,
• Codrin Tugui,
• George Stiubianu,
• Adrian Bele,
• Liviu Sacarescu,
• Daniel Timpu and
• Maria Cazacu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2074–2087, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.198

• measurements (DLS) were made on a Malvern Zetasizer NS (Malvern Instruments, UK) instrument, which uses noninvasive backscatter detection and a laser wavelength of 633 nm. The Raman spectra were obtained using the Renishaw InVia Refex spectrometer with a 632.8 nm HeNe laser as an excitation source in the

A dioxaborine cyanine dye as a photoluminescence probe for sensing carbon nanotubes

• Mohammed Al Araimi,
• Petro Lutsyk,
• Anatoly Verbitsky,
• Yuri Piryatinski,
• Mykola Shandura and
• Aleksey Rozhin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1991–1999, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.190

• Mohammed Al Araimi Petro Lutsyk Anatoly Verbitsky Yuri Piryatinski Mykola Shandura Aleksey Rozhin Nanotechnology Research Group, Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, School of Engineering & Applied Science, Aston University, Aston Triangle, B4 7ET Birmingham, UK Engineering Department, Al