Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are gaining interest as a "green" nanomaterial with superior mechanical and chemical properties for high-performance nanocomposite materials; however, there is a lack of accurate material property characterization of individual CNCs. Here, a detailed study of the topography, elastic and adhesive properties of individual wood-derived CNCs is performed using atomic f...

In this work the mechanism of (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) interaction with silicon surfaces is investigated at the molecular level. We studied the influence of experimental parameters such as time, temperature, and concentration on the quality of the APTES layer in terms of chemical properties, morphology, and stability in aqueous medium. This was achieved using a highly sensitive IR...

The nanoscale surface analysis of microbial cells represents a significant challenge of current microbiology and is critical for developing new biotechnological and biomedical applications. Using atomic force microscopy (AFM) topographic imaging, researchers can visualize the ultrastructure of live cells under physiological conditions and their subtle modifications upon cell growth or treatment...

a-Fe2O3 nanowires (NWs) were formed by the thermal oxidation of an iron film in air at 350 C for 10 h. The rhombohedral structure of the a-Fe2O3 NWs was grown vertically on the substrate with diameters of 8–25 nm and lengths of several hundred nm. It was found that the population density of the NWs per unit area (DNWs) can be varied by the film thickness. The thicker the iron film, the more NWs...

This work reports current efforts in developing experimental techniques applicable for thermoelectric properties characterization at micro and nanoscale. A one-dimensional transport model was used to asses the effects of heat leakage, non-symmetric boundary conditions, and electrical contact resistance, on thermoelectric properties measurements performed by transient Harman method. If the above...

We report our results of continuous illumination of Ge46S54 chalcogenide glass films with bandgap light in air. The outcome of this process is the formation of Ge–S backbone depleted in germanium. We relate this to consumption of some of the germanium available in the initial material due to the occurrence of a photoinduced oxidation. This is proved using energy dispersion spectroscopy which sh...

A new in-process atomic-force microscopy (AFM) based inspection is presented for nanolithography to compensate for any deviation such as instantaneous degradation of the lithography probe tip. Traditional method used the AFM probes for lithography work and retract to inspect the obtained feature but this practice degrades the probe tip shape and hence, affects the measurement quality. This pape...

Tantalum oxide is a compound with attractive properties and important applications in optoelectronis. It has a high refractive index and a good thermal and chemical stability. Tantalum oxide thin layers have been deposited by laser ablationpulsed laser deposition (PLD) and radiofrequency assisted pulsed laser ablation (RF-PLD) starting from a Tantalum metallic target in oxygen atmosphere. In th...