Nanodiamond powder belongs to the carbon nanomaterial family, which, along with graphene, fullerene and nanotubes, has attracted great interest in recent years due to its unique physical and chemical properties. Initially, nanodiamond applications were rooted in the defense industry but have now reached into a variety of fields, such as fine polishing, lubricating, coatings and polymers. Curren...

As molecular labels for cells and tissues, fluorescent probes have shaped our understanding of biological structures and processes. However, their capacity for quantitative analysis is limited because photon emission rates from multicolour fluorophores are dissimilar, unstable and often unpredictable, which obscures correlations between measured fluorescence and molecular concentration. Here we...

This work compares structural and optical properties of silicon nanocrystals prepared by two fundamentally different methods, namely, electrochemical etching of Si wafers and low-pressure plasma synthesis, completed with a mechano-photo-chemical treatment. This treatment leads to surface passivation of the nanoparticles by methyl groups. Plasma synthesis unlike electrochemical etching allows se...

This paper presents a complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatible method for the chemical vapor deposition of singlewalled carbon nanotubes SWNTs . The method uses Ge implantation into a SiO2 layer to create Ge nanocrystals, which are then used to produce SWNTs. The results of atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy analyses indicate that Ge implantation provides good co...

The influence of the tip-substrate bias induced electric field in a scanningtunneling-spectroscopy experiment on charged InAs nanocrystals is studied. Calculating the ground and first excited many-particle state for five electrons occupying the quantum dot reveals a Stark-induced reordering of states by increasing the electric field strength. It is shown that this reordering of states is accomp...

This paper reports the synthetic route of 3-D network shape α-Fe2O3 from aqueous solutions of iron precursor using a non-ionic polymeric soft-template, Pluronic P123. During the synthesis of α-Fe2O3, particle sizes, crystal phases and morphologies were significantly influenced by pH, concentrations of precursor and template. The unique shape of worm-like hematite was obtained only when a starti...

Particle size is widely used to tune the electronic, optical, and catalytic properties of semiconductor nanocrystals. This contrasts with bulk semiconductors, where properties are tuned based on composition, either through doping or through band gap engineering of alloys. Ideally, one would like to control both size and composition of semiconductor nanocrystals. Here, we demonstrate production ...

We describe the structural, optical, and electrical properties of high-quality films of PbSe nanocrystals fabricated by a layer-by-layer (LbL) dip-coating method that utilizes 1,2-ethanedithiol (EDT) as an insolubilizing agent. Comparative characterization of nanocrystal films made by spin-coating and by the LbL process shows that EDT quantitatively displaces oleic acid on the PbSe surface, cau...

Binary nanocrystal superlattices, that is, ordered structures of two sorts of nanocolloids, hold promise for a series of functional materials with novel collective properties. Here we show that based on electron tomography a comprehensive, quantitative, three-dimensional characterization of these systems down to the single nanocrystal level can be achieved, which is key in understanding the eme...

In this letter, isolated Si nanocrystal has been formed by dewetting process with a thin silicon dioxide layer on top. Scanning capacitance microscopy and spectroscopy were used to study the memory properties and charge effect in the Si nanocrystal in ambient temperature. The retention time of trapped charges injected by different direct current (DC) bias were evaluated and compared. By ramp pr...