Urinary stone disease, particularly calcium oxalate, is common in both humans and cats. Calcifying nanoparticles (CNP) are spherical nanocrystallite material, and are composed of proteins (fetuin, albumin) and inorganic minerals. CNP are suggested to play a role in a wide array of pathologic mineralization syndromes including urolithiasis. We documented the development of a clinically relevant ...

Light scattering is a method that has been employed in dye-sensitized solar cells for optical absorption enhancement. In conventional dye-sensitized solar cells, large TiO(2) particles with sizes comparable to the wavelength of visible light are used as scatterers by either being mixed into the nanocrystalline film to generate light scattering or forming a scattering layer on the top of the nan...

TiO2 surfactant-templated nanostructured film was fabricated by supramolecular templating technique using TiCl4 and P-123 as raw material and surfactant, respectively. The film was produced by sol-gel dip coating procedure. Characterization of the product was carried out by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface areas,...

Silicon/zinc oxide (Si/ZnO) core-shell nanowires (NWs) were prepared on a p-type Si(111) substrate using a two-step growth process. First, indium seed-coated Si NWs (In/Si NWs) were synthesized using a plasma-assisted hot-wire chemical vapor deposition technique. This was then followed by the growth of a ZnO nanostructure shell layer using a vapor transport and condensation method. By varying t...

Organically-modified hydroxyapatite materials were synthesized through the addition of oxalic, succinic, adipic and citric acids to a calcium hydroxide solution before neutralization by ammonium dihydrogenphosphate. All carboxylic acids have a significant influence on apatite crystallinity and nanoparticle size, as indicated by XRD and TEM. Chemical and thermogravimetric analyses as well as FTI...

In the present work we undertake a re-examination of effective mass theory (EMT) for a semiconductor quantum dot. We take into account the fact that the effective mass (mi) of the carrier inside the dot of radius R is distinct from the mass (mo) in the dielectric coating surrounding the dot. The electronic structure of the quantum dot is determined in crucial ways by the mass discontinuity fact...

In the present work, preceramic nanocrystallite barium cerate (BaCeO3) was successfully synthesized using hydrazine-nitrate combustion method. Using carbon-free hydrazine (N2H4) as fuel significantly reduced formation of carbonate by-products. Subsequent annealing products in air atmosphere at temperatures range 500–1000 °С yielded powders based on chemically and phase-pure BaCeO3. Characteriza...

A Bayesian/Maximum entropy (MaxEnt) method is applied to quantify the broadening of Xray line profiles in terms of the nanocrystallite size effects in ceria. The analysis is in general agreement with transmission electron microscopy results, while demonstrating the importance of appropriate a priori information needed in the method. The analysis also identifies other microstructural effects, su...