Search results for "Nanoscopic scale"
showing 10 items of 164 documents
Manipulation of nanoparticles of different shapes inside a scanning electron microscope
2014
In this work polyhedron-like gold and sphere-like silver nanoparticles (NPs) were manipulated on an oxidized Si substrate to study the dependence of the static friction and the contact area on the particle geometry. Measurements were performed inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM) that was equipped with a high-precision XYZ-nanomanipulator. To register the occurring forces a quartz tuning fork (QTF) with a glued sharp probe was used. Contact areas and static friction forces were calculated by using different models and compared with the experimentally measured force. The effect of NP morphology on the nanoscale friction is discussed.
A new tool for nanoscale X-ray absorption spectroscopy and element-specific SNOM microscopy.
2007
Abstract Investigations of complex nanostructured materials used in modern technologies require special experimental techniques able to provide information on the structure and electronic properties of materials with a spatial resolution down to the nanometer scale. We tried to address these needs through the combination of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) using synchrotron radiation microbeams with scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) detection of the X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) signal. The first results obtained with the prototype instrumentation installed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France) are presented. They illustrate the possibi…
Nanodiamond Theranostic for Light-Controlled Intracellular Heating and Nanoscale Temperature Sensing
2021
Temperature is an essential parameter in all biological systems, but information about the actual temperature in living cells is limited. Especially, in photothermal therapy, local intracellular temperature changes induce cell death but the local temperature gradients are not known. Highly sensitive nanothermometers would be required to measure and report local temperature changes independent of the intracellular environment, including pH or ions. Fluorescent nanodiamonds (ND) enable temperature sensing at the nanoscale independent of external conditions. Herein, we prepare ND nanothermometers coated with a nanogel shell and the photothermal agent indocyanine green serves as a heat generato…
Contact laws between nanoparticles: the elasticity of a nanopowder
2018
International audience; Studies of the mechanical contact between nanometer-scale particles provide fundamental insights into the mechanical properties of materials and the validity of contact laws at the nanoscale which are still under debate for contact surfaces approaching atomic dimensions. Using in situ Brillouin light scattering under high pressure, we show that effective medium theories successfully predict the macroscopic sound velocities in nanopowders if one takes into account the cementation of the contacts Our measurements suggest the relevance of the continuum approach and effective medium theories to describe the contact between nanoparticles of diameters as small as 4 nm, i.e…
Thermo-, piezo-, photo- and chemo-switchable spin crossover iron(II)-metallocyanate based coordination polymers
2011
Abstract The design of coordination polymers (CPs) with switch and memory functions is an important subject of current interest in the search for new advanced materials with potential applications. Implementation of CPs with electronically labile iron(II) building blocks able to undergo cooperative spin crossover (SCO) behavior is a singular approach to this end. This review provides an up to date survey of a new generation of iron(II)-metallocyanate based spin crossover coordination polymers (SCO-CPs) developed during the last decade. These new solids feature structural diversity, supramolecular isomerism, interpenetrating frameworks, structure flexibility, reversible solid-state chemical …
Polymeric janus particles.
2009
Since de Gennes' Nobel lecture in 1991, in which he coined the term "Janus grains", research into asymmetric particles has boomed. Macroscopic, microscopic and nanoscopic particles have been prepared in which certain parts of their surface differ in chemical composition, polarity, color, or any other property. Spherical, cylindrical, disc-like, snowman-, hamburger-, and raspberry-like structures have been synthesized from organic or inorganic materials or even as hybrids of both. Synthetic strategies towards such particles vary greatly from simple polymer mixtures to the bulk self-assembly of sophisticated terpolymers to immobilization methods of symmetric particles. Polymeric Janus particl…
Morphology of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate room temperature ionic liquids
2008
The structural organization in selected room temperature ionic liquids, namely (a) butyl-, (b) hexyl- and (c) octyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, is investigated by means of X-ray diffraction. We find novel experimental evidences of the existence of a high degree of intermediate range order that is associated to nanoscale segregation of the alkyl chains into the charged matrix. The size of these structural heterogeneities depends linearly from the alkyl chain length. A similar behaviour had been observed in other systems, such as normal alcohols. The slope of such dependence provides hints on the nature of the structural organization of these segregated domains.
Inside Front Cover: A Combined Top-Down/Bottom-Up Approach for the Nanoscale Patterning of Spin-Crossover Coordination Polymers (Adv. Mater. 16/2007)
2007
The background scanning electron microscopy image shows nanometric patterns of the 3D spin crossover coordination polymer Fe(pyrazine)[Pt(CN)4] (see schematic structure in the circle), which have been fabricated using a combination of lift-off and multilayer sequential assembly methods. These patterns, reported by Gabor Molnar, Azzedine Bousseksou, and co-workers on p. 2163, exhibit a bistability of their electronic states (1A1 ⇌ 5T2), and thus represent a novel platform for a wide array of potential applications.
Magnetic molecular nanostructures: Design of magnetic molecular materials as monolayers, multilayers and thin films
2007
In this paper we summarize the importance and versatility of the molecular approach in the design and development of novel magnetic molecular materials. These materials processing, in order to obtain controlled molecular structures at the nanoscale, will also be remarked.
Nanoscale mechanical characterization of polymers by AFM nanoindentations: Critical approach to the elastic characterization
2006
AFM nanoindentations show a dependence of penetration, i.e., the relative motion between the sample and the tip (indenter), on material elastic properties when using the same load. This elationship becomes visible by using of samples being homogeneous down to the scale of nanoindentation. They were prepared from materials covering a broad range of mechanical behavior: from rubbery networks to glassy and semicrystalline polymers. The elastic modulus can be obtained applying Sneddon’s elastic contact mechanics approach. To do this, some calibrations and instrumental features have to be measured accurately. All the polymers tested show that the contact between the tip and the sample is dominat…