Université de Fribourg

Avoiding drying-artifacts in transmission electron microscopy: Characterizing the size and colloidal state of nanoparticles

Michen, Benjamin ; Geers, Christoph ; Vanhecke, Dimitri ; Endes, Carola ; Rothen-Rutishauser, Barbara ; Balog, Sandor ; Petri-Fink, Alke

In: Scientific Reports, 2015, vol. 5, p. 9793

Standard transmission electron microscopy nanoparticle sample preparation generally requires the complete removal of the suspending liquid. Drying often introduces artifacts, which can obscure the state of the dispersion prior to drying and preclude automated image analysis typically used to obtain number-weighted particle size distribution. Here we present a straightforward protocol for...

Université de Fribourg

A quantitative study of particle size effects in the magnetorelaxometry of magnetic nanoparticles using atomic magnetometry

Dolgovskiy, Vladimir ; Lebedev, Victor ; Colombo, Simone ; Weis, Antoine ; Michen, Benjamin ; Ackermann-Hirschi, Liliane ; Petri-Fink, Alke

In: Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 2015, vol. 379, p. 137–150

The discrimination of immobilised superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) against SPIONs in fluid environments via their magnetic relaxation behaviour is a powerful tool for bio-medical imaging. Here we demonstrate that a gradiometer of laser-pumped atomic magnetometers can be used to record accurate time series of the relaxing magnetic field produced by pre-polarised SPIONs. We have...

Université de Fribourg

Dynamic depolarized light scattering of small round plasmonic nanoparticles: When imperfection is only perfect

Balog, Sandor ; Rodriguez-Lorenzo, Laura ; Monnier, Christophe A. ; Michen, Benjamin ; Obiols-Rabasa, Marc ; Casal-Dujat, Lucia ; Rothen-Rutishauser, Barbara ; Petri-Fink, Alke ; Schurtenberger, Peter

In: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2014, vol. 118, no. 31, p. 17968–17974

Although small round gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) possess only a small degree of shape anisotropy, they support localized surface plasmon resonances and exhibit intrinsic optical anisotropy. These inherent features promote depolarized light scattering, whose temporal fluctuations carry information about rotational Brownian dynamics, and thus can be used to describe the size distribution of...

Université de Fribourg

Bis-TEGylated poly(p-benzamide)s: combining organosolubility with shape persistence

Schulze, Maren ; Michen, Benjamin ; Fink, Alke ; Kilbinger, and Andreas F. M.

In: Macromolecules, 2013, vol. 46, no. 14, p. 5520–5530

The synthesis of perfectly planar, bis-substituted aromatic polyamides is reported herein. With highly flexible triethylene glycol chains attached and conformational restriction through intramolecular, bifurcated hydrogen bonds these are among the most shape-persistent yet organo-soluble polymers to date. Starting from 4-nitrosalicylic acid, our group developed a route to phenyl-2,5-bis-TEGylated...