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Extraordinary Structures and Physicochemical Properties of Nanomaterials—Select Papers from ICNNN 2017

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2018) | Viewed by 8492

Special Issue Editors

Department of Physics, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan
Interests: nanobiomaterials; nanobioscience; nanobiotechnology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering, Fuchu, Japan
Interests: semiconducting block copolymers, design for high mobility, electroluminescence, photovoltaic device, photorefractive materials, NMR characterization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The joint conference of the 6th International Conference on Nanostructures, Nanomaterials and Nanoengineering 2017 (ICNNN 2017) will be held in Tokyo, Japan, 26–29 October 2017. The conference will provide opportunities for scientific discussion and international communication for wide range of researchers.

ICNNN 2017 focuses on nanostructures, nanomaterials, and nanoengineering. Extraordinary structures and physicochemical functions of nanomaterials are attractive research targets. For example, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have specific mechanical, electrical, and optical properties that are not found in bulk carbon materials, although CNTs are made only out of carbon. Papers related to the special structures and functions of nanomaterials will be major contributions to the first part of this Special Issue.

Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

  • Extraordinary structures and physicochemical functions of nanomaterials

  • Fabrication of extraordinary nanostructures

  • Fabrication of extraordinary physicochemical properties of nanomaterials

  • Characterization of extraordinary nanostructures

  • Characterization of extraordinary physicochemical properties of nanomaterials

  • Practical applications of extraordinary nanostructures

  • Practical applications of extraordinary physicochemical properties of nanomaterials

Prof. Kazuo Umemura
Prof. Kenji Ogino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nanomaterials;

  • nanostructures;

  • physicochemical properties;

  • applications

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 39329 KiB  
Article
Microfluidic Fabrication of Morphology-Controlled Polymeric Microspheres of Blends of Poly(4-butyltriphenylamine) and Poly(methyl methacrylate)
by Saki Yoshida, Shu Kikuchi, Shinji Kanehashi, Kazuo Okamoto and Kenji Ogino
Materials 2018, 11(4), 582; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma11040582 - 10 Apr 2018
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4574
Abstract
Multicomponent polymer particles with specific morphology are promising materials exhibiting novel functionality which cannot be obtained with single-component polymer particles. Particularly, the preparation of such kinds of polymer particles involving electrically or optically active conjugated polymers with uniform size is a challenging subject [...] Read more.
Multicomponent polymer particles with specific morphology are promising materials exhibiting novel functionality which cannot be obtained with single-component polymer particles. Particularly, the preparation of such kinds of polymer particles involving electrically or optically active conjugated polymers with uniform size is a challenging subject due to their intense demands. Here, microspheres of binary polymer blend consisting of poly(4-butyltriphenylamine) (PBTPA)/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) (1:1 in weight) were produced via a microfluidic emulsification with a Y-shaped microreactor, and a subsequent solvent evaporation method. The flow rate of the dispersed phase (polymer solution) was fixed to 7 µL/min, and 140 or 700 µL/min of the flow rate of the continuous phase (aqueous 0.6 wt % of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) solution) was utilized to produce the dispersion with different diameter. The concentration of dispersed phase was adjusted to 0.1 or 1.0 w/v%. Core-shell, Janus and dumbbell type microspheres were obtained dependent on the flow rate of continuous phase. Incomplete core-shell type microspheres were produced for the blend involving low molecular weight PMMA. Complex Janus and core-shell type microspheres were fabricated by the addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) to continuous phase. It is found that final morphologies are strongly dependent on the initial conditions of dispersion including the particle size suggesting that the morphologies are governed by the kinetical factors together with the conventionally accepted thermodynamic ones. Full article
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12 pages, 3124 KiB  
Article
Fabrication of Completely Polymer-Based Solar Cells with p- and n-Type Semiconducting Block Copolymers with Electrically Inert Polystyrene
by Eri Tomita, Shinji Kanehashi and Kenji Ogino
Materials 2018, 11(3), 343; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma11030343 - 27 Feb 2018
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3640
Abstract
It is widely recognized that fullerene derivatives show several advantages as n-type materials in photovoltaic applications. However, conventional [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) exhibits weak absorption in the visible region, and poor morphological stability, due to the facile aggregation. For further improvement of [...] Read more.
It is widely recognized that fullerene derivatives show several advantages as n-type materials in photovoltaic applications. However, conventional [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) exhibits weak absorption in the visible region, and poor morphological stability, due to the facile aggregation. For further improvement of the device performance and durability, utilization of n-type polymeric materials instead of PCBM is considered to be a good way to solve the problems. In this study, we fabricated completely polymer-based solar cells utilizing p- and n-type block copolymers consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and poly{[N,N′-bis(2-octyldodecyl)naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]-alt-5,5′-(2,2′-bithiophene)} [P(NDI2OD-T2)], respectively, containing common polystyrene (PSt) inert blocks, which decreased the size of phase separated structures. Electron mobility in synthesized P(NDI2OD-T2)-b-PSt film enhanced by a factor of 8 compared with homopolymer. The root mean square roughness of the blend film of two block copolymers (12.2 nm) was decreased, compared with that of the simple homopolymers blend (18.8 nm). From the current density-voltage characteristics, it was confirmed that the introduction of PSt into both P3HT and P(NDI2OD-T2) improves short-circuit current density (1.16 to 1.73 mA cm−2) and power-conversion efficiency (0.24% to 0.32%). Better performance is probably due to the uniformity of the phase separation, and the enhancement of charge mobility. Full article
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