Nanomanufacturing of titania interfaces with controlled structural and functional properties by supersonic cluster beam deposition

Abstract

Great emphasis is placed on the development of integrated approaches for the synthesis and the characterization of ad hoc nanostructured platforms, to be used as templates with controlled morphology and chemical properties for the investigation of specific phenomena of great relevance for technological applications in interdisciplinary fields such as biotechnology, medicine and advanced materials. Here we discuss the crucial role and the advantages of thin film deposition strategies based on cluster-assembling from supersonic cluster beams. We select cluster-assembled nanostructured titania (ns-TiO 2 ) as a case study to demonstrate that accurate control over morphological parameters can be routinely achieved, and consequently over several relevant interfacial properties and phenomena, like surface charging in a liquid electrolyte, and proteins and nanoparticles adsorption.

Scale Invariant Disordered Nanotopography Promotes Hippocampal Neuron Development and Maturation with Involvement of Mechanotransductive Pathways

“…With the help of this technique it is possible to create reproducible nanostructured films with controllable nanotopographical features (representative examples in Figure 1A) (Wegner et al, 2006; Podestà et al, 2015). Compared to other nanofabrication techniques (especially top-down lithographic approaches) (Mendes, 2013; Chen et al, 2015), SCBD provides the additional advantage to enable the coverage of large macroscopic areas with a defined surface nanotopography.…”

Cluster-assembled cubic zirconia films with tunable and stable nanoscale morphology against thermal annealing

“…1(a) and 1(b) highlight the typical morphology of ns-ZrO x films produced by SCBD, characterized by high specific area, roughness, and porosity at the nano scale. 48 As it is well known for evolving growing interfaces, surface roughness, specific area, as well as the lateral dimension of the largest morphological features (the correlation length) increase as time and thickness increase, according to simple scaling laws. 49,50 The characterization of the scaling exponents allows therefore predicting and controlling the evolution of the surface morphology of nanostructured materials.…”

“…49 The value of b is obtained by a linear regression of the experimental Rq vs h curve in a log -log plot. According to our data, b ¼ 0.368 6 0.001 for ns-ZrO x films, a value typical of evolving interfaces in the ballistic deposition regime, [48][49][50] where incoming particles stick on the substrate upon landing without significant mobility. A similar value of the growth exponent b was obtained for cluster-assembled nanostructured titania films (ns-TiO 2 ) produced by SCBD (b ns-TiO2 ¼ 0.380 6 0.040).…”

“…49,50 The characterization of the scaling exponents allows therefore predicting and controlling the evolution of the surface morphology of nanostructured materials. 48 We quantitatively characterized the evolution of surface nanoscale roughness with increasing film thickness at room temperature. The analysis of AFM topographic maps shows that the relationship between RMS roughness Rq and film thickness h is governed by the power law R q $ h b (Fig.…”

“…A similar value of the growth exponent b was obtained for cluster-assembled nanostructured titania films (ns-TiO 2 ) produced by SCBD (b ns-TiO2 ¼ 0.380 6 0.040). 48 In order to correlate the evolution of the surface morphological properties with coalescence and phase transition phenomena induced by the thermal annealing process, we have performed surface granulometry studies based on AFM topographic maps. We have focused our attention on the distribution of grain radius values and on their median value, in order to correlate these data to the average crystallite size measured by X-ray diffraction.…”