Comparison of electrochemical performance of various boron-doped diamond electrodes: Dopamine sensing in biomimicking media used for cell cultivation.

Chemically inert and biocompatible boron-doped diamond (BDD) has been successfully used in neuroscience for sensitive neurochemicals sensing and/or as a growth substrate for neurons. In this study, several types of BDD differing in (i) fabrication route, i.e.

Surface Preconditioning Influences the Antifouling Capabilities of Zwitterionic and Nonionic Polymer Brushes.

Polymer brushes not only represent emerging surface platforms for numerous bioanalytical and biological applications but also create advanced surface-tethered systems to mimic real-life biological processes. In particular, zwitterionic and nonionic polymer brushes have been intensively studied because of their extraordinary resistance to nonspecific adsorption of biomolecules (antifouling characteristics) as well as the ability to be functionalized with bioactive molecules. However, the relation between antifouling behavior in real-world biological media and structural changes of polymer brushes induced by surface preconditioning in different environments remains unexplored.

Characterization of Newly Developed Zinc Composite with the Content of 8 wt.% of Hydroxyapatite Particles Processed by Extrusion.

Zinc and its alloys belong to a group of biodegradable materials, which can be potentially used for the preparation of temporary orthopedic implants. The research of biodegradable zinc materials revealed a lot of limitations; however, the new processing approaches of those materials can enhance their properties, which are insufficient for now. In this study, the zinc composite with 8 wt.

Grain morphology reconstruction of crystalline materials from Laue three-dimensional neutron diffraction tomography.

The macroscopic properties of advanced engineering and functional materials are highly dependent on their overall grain orientation distribution, size, and morphology. Here we present Laue 3D neutron diffraction tomography providing reconstructions of the grains constituting a coarse-grained polycrystalline material. Reconstructions of the grain morphology of a highly pure Fe cylinder and a Cu cube sample are presented.

Nucleation and growth of metal-catalyzed silicon nanowires under plasma.

We report the results of a microscopic study of the nucleation and early growth stages of metal-catalyzed silicon nanowires in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The nucleation of silicon nanowires is investigated as a function of different deposition conditions and metal catalysts (Sn, In and Au) using correlation of atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. This correlation method enabled us to visualize individual catalytic nanoparticles before and after the nanowire growth and identify the key parameters influencing the nanowire nucleation under plasma.