Volcanic Eruption in the Nanoworld: Efficient Oxygen Exchange at the Si/SnO Interface.

Here, a phenomenon of efficient oxygen exchange between a silicon surface and a thin layer of tin dioxide during chemical vapor deposition is presented, which leads to a unique Sn:SiO layer. Under thermodynamic conditions in the temperature range of 725-735 °C, the formation of nanostructures with volcano-like shapes in "active" and "dormant" states are observed. Extensive characterization techniques, such as electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, synchrotron radiation-based X-ray photoelectron, and X-ray absorption near-edge structure spectroscopy, are applied to study the formation.

SERS-based detection of the antibiotic ceftriaxone in spiked fresh plasma and microdialysate matrix by using silver-functionalized silicon nanowire substrates.

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is an important tool in precision medicine as it allows estimating pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic effects of drugs in clinical settings. An accurate, fast and real-time determination of the drug concentrations in patients ensures fast decision-making processes at the bedside to optimize the clinical treatment. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which is based on the application of metallic nanostructured substrates to amplify the inherent weak Raman signal, is a promising technique in medical research due to its molecular specificity and trace sensitivity accompanied with short detection times.

Tin/Tin Oxide Nanostructures: Formation, Application, and Atomic and Electronic Structure Peculiarities.

For a very long period, tin was considered one of the most important metals for humans due to its easy access in nature and abundance of sources. In the past, tin was mainly used to make various utensils and weapons. Today, nanostructured tin and especially its oxide materials have been found to possess many characteristic physical and chemical properties that allow their use as functional materials in various fields such as energy storage, photocatalytic process, gas sensors, and solar cells.

Spectromicroscopy Studies of Silicon Nanowires Array Covered by Tin Oxide Layers.

The composition and atomic and electronic structure of a silicon nanowire (SiNW) array coated with tin oxide are studied at the spectromicroscopic level. SiNWs are covered from top to down with a wide bandgap tin oxide layer using a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technique. Results obtained via scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction showed that tin-oxide nanocrystals, 20 nm in size, form a continuous and highly developed surface with a complex phase composition responsible for the observed electronic structure transformation.

Nanostructured Silicon Matrix for Materials Engineering.

Tin-containing layers with different degrees of oxidation are uniformly distributed along the length of silicon nanowires formed by a top-down method by applying metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The electronic and atomic structure of the obtained layers is investigated by applying nondestructive surface-sensitive X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation. The results demonstrated, for the first time, a distribution effect of the tin-containing phases in the nanostructured silicon matrix compared to the results obtained for planar structures at the same deposition temperatures.