| 1. |
- Ajalloueian, Fatemeh, et al.
(författare)
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Emulsion Electrospinning as an Approach to Fabricate PLGA/Chitosan Nanofibers for Biomedical Applications
- 2014
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Ingår i: BioMed Research International. - : Hindawi Publishing Corporation. - 2314-6133 .- 2314-6141. ; :475280
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Novel nanofibers from blends of polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) and chitosan have been produced through an emulsion electrospinning process. The spinning solution employed polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the emulsifier. PVA was extracted from the electrospun nanofibers, resulting in a final scaffold consisting of a blend of PLGA and chitosan. The fraction of chitosan in the final electrospun mat was adjusted from 0 to 33%. Analyses by scanning and transmission electron microscopy show uniform nanofibers with homogenous distribution of PLGA and chitosan in their cross section. Infrared spectroscopy verifies that electrospun mats contain both PLGA and chitosan. Moreover, contact angle measurements show that the electrospun PLGA/chitosanmats are more hydrophilic than electrospun mats of pure PLGA. Tensile strengths of 4.94 MPa and 4.21 MPa for PLGA/chitosan in dry and wet conditions, respectively, illustrate that the polyblend mats of PLGA/chitosan are strong enough for many biomedical applications. Cell culture studies suggest that PLGA/chitosan nanofibers promote fibroblast attachment and proliferation compared to PLGA membranes. It can be assumed that the nanofibrous composite scaffold of PLGA/chitosan could be potentially used for skin tissue reconstruction.
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| 2. |
- Akhtar, Sultan, et al.
(författare)
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Real-Space Transmission Electron Microscopy Investigations of Attachment of Functionalized Magnetic Nanoparticles to DNA-Coils Acting as a Biosensor
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Physical Chemistry B. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1520-6106 .- 1520-5207. ; 114:41, s. 13255-13262
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present work provides the first real-space analysis of nanobead-DNA coil interactions. Immobilization of oligonucleotide-functionalized magnetic nanobeads in rolling circle amplified DNA-coils was studied by complex magnetization measurements and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and a statistical analysis of the number of beads hybridized to the DNA-coils was performed. The average number of beads per DNAcoil using the results from both methods was found to be around 6 and slightly above 2 for samples with 40 and 130 nm beads, respectively. The TEM analysis supported an earlier hypothesis that 40 nm beads are preferably immobilized in the interior of DNA-coils whereas 130 nm beads, to a larger extent, are immobilized closer to the exterior of the coils. The methodology demonstrated in the present work should open up new possibilities for characterization of interactions of a large variety of functionalized nanoparticles with macromolecules, useful for gaining more fundamental understanding of such interactions as well as for optimizing a number of biosensor applications.
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| 4. |
- Akhtar, Sultan
(författare)
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Transmission Electron Microscopy of Graphene and Hydrated Biomaterial Nanostructures : Novel Techniques and Analysis
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) on light element materials and soft matters is problematic due to electron irradiation damage and low contrast. In this doctoral thesis techniques were developed to address some of those issues and successfully characterize these materials at high resolution. These techniques were demonstrated on graphene flakes, DNA/magnetic beads and a number of water containing biomaterials. The details of these studies are given below.A TEM based method was presented for thickness characterization of graphene flakes. For the thickness characterization, the dynamical theory of electron diffraction is used to obtain an analytical expression for the intensity of the transmitted electron beam as a function of thickness. From JEMS simulations (experiments) the absorption constant λ in a low symmetry orientation was found to be ~ 208 nm (225 ± 9 nm). When compared to standard techniques for thickness determination of graphene/graphite, the method has the advantage of being relatively simple, fast and requiring only the acquisition of bright-field (BF) images. Using the proposed method, it is possible to measure the thickness change due to one monolayer of graphene if the flake has uniform thickness over a larger area.A real-space TEM study on magnetic bead-DNA coil interaction was conducted and a statistical analysis of the number of beads attached to the DNA-coils was performed. The average number of beads per DNA coil was calculated around 6 and slightly above 2 for samples with 40 nm and 130 nm beads, respectively. These results are in good agreement with magnetic measurements. In addition, the TEM analysis supported an earlier hypothesis that 40 nm beads are preferably attached interior of the DNA-coils while 130 nm beads closer to the exterior of the coils.A focused ion-beam in-situ lift-out technique for hydrated biological specimens was developed for cryo-TEM. The technique was demonstrated on frozen Aspergillus niger spores which were frozen with liquid nitrogen to preserve their cellular structures. A thin lamella was prepared, lifted out and welded to a TEM grid. Once the lamella was thinned to electron transparency, the grid was cryogenically transferred to the TEM using a cryo-transfer bath. The structure of the cells was revealed by BF imaging. Also, a series of energy filtered images was acquired and C, N and Mn elemental maps were produced. Furthermore, 3 Å lattice fringes of the underlying Al support were successfully resolved by high resolution imaging, confirming that the technique has the potential to extract structural information down to the atomic scale. The experimental protocol is ready now to be employed on a large variety of samples e.g. soft/hard matter interfaces.
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| 5. |
- Akhtar, Sultan, et al.
(författare)
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Visualization of functionalization of nano-particles and graphene in the TEM
- 2010
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Ingår i: Advanced Materials Workshop 2010.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently, the activity on functionalized nano-objects has strongly increased. Yet, there are, to our knowledge no techniques available that visualize the attachment of molecules to nano-entities such as nanoparticles and graphene. In this work, we show a methodology to analyse the attachment of molecules to nanoparticles and graphene. The difficulty of such transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterization consists in the high beam sensitivity of these nanoobjects. We employed a high resolution- as well as diffraction contrast-imaging methods to characterize graphene. First, we have developed a method to measure the thickness of free-standing graphene-like layers. The refinement of these imaging techniques enabled the imaging of functionalized C60 (fullerene) on top of a few-layer graphene flake by TEM. We also developed a methodology to visualize the attachment of functionalized gold and magnetic nanoparticles (different sizes) to nonstained and unlabeled single strand DNA-coils. This technique can be used to understand the interaction of a large variety of functionalized nanoparticles with their solution environment and/or macromolecular structures for their large applications.
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| 6. |
- Barbe, Jeremy, et al.
(författare)
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Silicon nanocrystals on amorphous silicon carbide alloy thin films : Control of film properties and nanocrystals growth
- 2012
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Ingår i: Thin Solid Films. - : Elsevier. - 0040-6090 .- 1879-2731. ; 522, s. 136-144
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present study demonstrates the growth of silicon nanocrystals on amorphous silicon carbide alloy thin films. Amorphous silicon carbide films [a-Si1 − xCx:H (with x < 0.3)] were obtained by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition from a mixture of silane and methane diluted in hydrogen. The effect of varying the precursor gas-flow ratio on the film properties was investigated. In particular, a wide optical band gap (2.3 eV) was reached by using a high methane-to-silane flow ratio during the deposition of the a-Si1 − xCx:H layer. The effect of short-time annealing at 700 °C on the composition and properties of the layer was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. It was observed that the silicon-to-carbon ratio in the layer remains unchanged after short-time annealing, but the reorganization of the film due to a large dehydrogenation leads to a higher density of SiC bonds. Moreover, the film remains amorphous after the performed short-time annealing. In a second part, it was shown that a high density (1 × 1012 cm− 2) of silicon nanocrystals can be grown by low pressure chemical vapor deposition on a-Si0.8C0.2 surfaces at 700 °C, from silane diluted in hydrogen. The influence of growth time and silane partial pressure on nanocrystals size and density was studied. It was also found that amorphous silicon carbide surfaces enhance silicon nanocrystal nucleation with respect to SiO2, due to the differences in surface chemical properties.
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| 7. |
- Blom, Tobias, et al.
(författare)
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An In-Situ Prepared Nano-Manipulator Tip for Electrical Characterization of Free Standing Graphene Like Sheets Inside a Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron Microscope
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Nanoelectronics and Optoelectronics. - : American Scientific. - 1555-130X .- 1555-1318. ; 6:2, s. 162-168
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although contacting and moving atoms has been demonstrated using probe techniques, for many nano-objects, a fast and reproducible nano-probe technique is needed to acquire a large number of electrical measurements on nano-objects that are often similar but not the identical. Nano-manipulators have become a common tool in many scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and focussed ion beam devices (FIB). They can be rapidly and reproducibly moved from one nano-object to another. In this work we present a procedure to obtain reproducible electrical measurements of nano- to micron-sized objects by using a sharp, tungsten tip with well defined surface properties. The tip is a part of a manipulator and is sharpened in-situ by using the gallium ion beam inside a focused ion beam/scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM). The contact resistance between a Au surface and the tip is 70 kΩ before the sharpening procedure and 10 Ω after sharpening. The leakage current of the total set-up of 10pA makes it possible to measure currents through a variety of nano-objects. This measurement technique is applied to measure the resistance of as grown, water treated and two HCl treated carbon nanosheets (CNS). These CNS vary in size and morphology. Using this nano-contacting set-up, we could obtain measurements of more than 400 different CNS. The obtained histograms allow us to observe a clear decrease of the resistance between original and 3 hour acid treated CNSs. We observe that longer periods of exposure of the CNS to the HCl do not further modify the resistance.
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