Current Nanoscience - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2009

Reducing the microbial load on environmental surfaces is an important means of preventing hospital cross-infection and there is great interest in developing self-disinfecting surface coatings for this purpose. The aims of this study were to produce a coating containing a light-activated antimicrobial agent (LAAA) that could exert an antimicrobial effect when illuminated with white light and to ascertain whether the antimi Read More

ZnO nanotubes array has been fabricated by a facile hydrothermal treatment of ZnO seeded silicon substrate in a sealed system. The as prepared ZnO nanotubes are single crystalline and have a [0001] preferential growth direction. Shape and size of the ZnO product is found to be sensitive to reaction conditions. Diffusion-limited crystal growth is proposed to explain the formation mechanism of ZnO nanotubes.

A simple route has been developed for the preparation of a series of one-dimensional rare earth (Y, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, and Yb) precursors by solvothermal treatment of corresponding rare earth nitrate in mixed solvents of N,Ndimethylformamide (DMF) and water at 200 °C without using any surfactant or additive. By a simple thermal transformation process, a series of rare earth oxides (Y2O3, Pr2O3, Nd2O Read More

Nanocrystalline CuO with particle size of about 24 nm was directly synthesized by sol-gel auto combustion method using citric acid as a reducing agent/fuel and nitrate as oxidizing agent at low temperature of 200°C. Thermal decomposition of the nitrate-citrate xerogel was investigated by thermogravimetric/differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA) technique in the temperature range 30-500°C. The yielding product calcined at Read More

Water-soluble CdS nanospheres assembled from CdS quantum dots (QDs) have been prepared using CdCl2 and thioglycolic acid in mixed solvents of glycerine and ethanolamine at an elevated temperature. The size of CdS nanospheres could be controlled through adjusting the experimental parameters. The UV-Visible absorption and photoluminescence spectra of CdS nanospheres were investigated. The deep-trap luminesce Read More

ZnO nanoneedles were successfully deposited on flexible polymer substrates at room temperature by activated reactive evaporation. Neither a catalyst nor a template was employed in this synthesis. These synthesized needles measured 500 - 600 nm in length and its diameter varied from 30 - 15 nm from the base to the tip. The single-crystalline nature of the nanoneedle was observed by highresolution transmission electro Read More

Probe-shaped GaN nanorods were successfully synthesized on Si(111) substrates through ammoniating Ga2O3/Mo films at 950 °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) were used to characterize the as-synthesized nanorods. The results show that the synthesized sample is well crystallized GaN with hexagonal wurzite structure. And the G Read More

The objective of this work is to develop a novel photodynamic drug nanocarrier consisting of magnetite and a drug with silica shell by sol-gel method. The nanocarriers were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). These nanocarriers were approximately spherical, sized in the range of 30-50 nm. It was confirmed that the drug Read More

In this research, RF magnetron sputtering was employed to grow 3D nano-structured ITO thin films using the barrier-layer side of an anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) as the template. The template was prepared by immersing this side of an AAO film into a 30 wt% phosphoric acid solution to modify the surface of the barrier layer in such a manner that a contrasting surface was obtained. The resistivity and crystallinity of the d Read More

Carbon nanotube (CNT) growth on catalyst as a function of time, temperature, diameter of the CNT, damping factor of the system, and the type of catalyst is investigated via a theoretical analysis on the phonon vibration of the system. Simulations demonstrate that CNTs with larger diameter grow lesser owing to higher damping factors and CNT inertia. In addition, an optimum temperature for the growth is obtained for a CNT Read More

Carbon fibers were uniformly coated with carbon nanotubes by catalytic decomposition of acetylene using thermal chemical vapor deposition technique at 700 °C. The nanotube coated fibers were employed for the fabrication of unidirectional multi-scale composites with epoxy matrix. As the carbon nanotubes were directly grown on carbon fibers they remain firmly attached with the fiber substrate therefore they are antic Read More

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) biosensor based on a carbon nanotube (CNT) modified electrode was developed as an anticancer drug screening device for rapid electrochemical detection of cyclophosphamide. Screen-printing technology was employed to fabricate electrodes for biosensor construction. The interaction of cyclophosphamide with double stranded (ds) calf thymus DNA was detected with the developed CNT-bas Read More

In this paper a novel and effective method of manufacturing aligned fibers with nano-scale diameters based on electrospinning is described. The conventional procedure of electrospinning has been modified to generate nanofibers as uniaxially aligned array for specific applications. In comparison with typical method, the electrospinning is performed into the hollow metallic cylinder as a collector so that the needle is loc Read More

Mask-image-like block copolymer nanotemplates with densely packed polystyrene (PS) nano-dots were prepared by a simple top-down/bottom-up hybrid method using one-step excimer laser irradiation on perpendicular cylinder-containing block copolymer masks. Together with preferential etching of more ultraviolet (UV)-sensitive block component, non-selective removal of all block components, which reduced the overall sa Read More

The interfaces of dissimilar materials suffer high stress gradients due to the presence of thermal and stiffness mismatches of bonded materials. Interfaces of dissimilar materials are prone to crack initiations, leading to delaminations. The atomistic effects have to be taken into account correctly when the system becomes extremely small such as in nano-scale. The experimental test for this scale situation is an impossibl Read More

In this paper, we report the synthesis of barium zirconate, BaZrO3, (BZ) nanotubes fabricated by the modified sol-gel method within the nanochannels of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. The morphology, structure, and composition of as prepared nanotubes were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), transmission electron microsc Read More

The activity of herbal medicines depends on overall function of a variety of active components, as all the constituents provide synergistic action and thus enhance the therapeutic value. The nature serves us with the exact proportion of all the constituents for various ailments in a single species. Each active constituent plays an important role and they are all related to each other. However most of the herbal origin drugs possess i Read More

In the microchannel-emulsification approach for producing nano-/subnano-liter droplets, the external energy input into the droplet accounts for the variation of the droplet surface free energy during its growth on the terrace. Avoiding the demand for an infinite energy input is the mechanism responsible for the experimental observation that there is always some remaining dispersed liquid on the terrace after generation of on Read More

Lipid matrix nanoparticles, such as solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC), have been sought as a useful alternative for formulating poorly soluble drugs intended for several administration routes, e.g. oral, parenteral and topical. These systems are surfaced by a film of surfactant in an aqueous phase, being therefore physicochemically and thermodynamically stable having a mean particle size bel Read More

The current rise in the interest in physical phenomena at nano spatial scale is described hereby as a natural consequence of the scientific progress in manipulation with matter with an ever higher sensitivity. The reason behind arising of the entirely new field of nanoscience is that the properties of nanostructured materials may significantly differ from their bulk counterparts and cannot be predicted by extrapolations of the size-d Read More