Sharif Digital Repository

Vertically aligned multi-wall carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays were fabricated in tip-growth mode on Ni/Si substrates using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. In a purification process including hydrogenation and acid washing of the Ni/CNTs, the oxygen-containing functional groups were substantially reduced and a wide hollow core at the tip of the CNTs was formed by removing the Ni seeds. Sol-gel silver nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of the unpurified Ni/CNTs, while they could also be embedded within the hollow core of the Ni-removed CNTs. The persistency of the silver ions in the Ni-removed Ag-CNTs in comparison to the release of the silver ions from the Ag-Ni/CNTs in a... 

TiO2/multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWNT) heterojunction arrays were synthesized and immobilized on Si(0 0 1) substrate as photocatalysts for inactivation of Escherichia coli bacteria. The vertically aligned MWNT arrays were grown on ∼5 nm Ni thin film deposited on the Si by using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at 650 °C. Then, the MWNTs were coated by TiO2 using dip-coating sol-gel method. Post annealing of the TiO2/MWNTs at 400 °C resulted in crystallization of the TiO2 coating and formation of Ti-C and Ti-O-C carbonaceous bonds at the heterojunction. The visible light-induced photoinactivation of the bacteria increased from MWNTs to TiO2 to TiO2/MWNTs, in which the bacteria could... 

The main drawback of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries which leads to a short lifetime, is the shuttle effect during the battery operation. One of the solutions to mitigate the shuttle effect is the utilization of interlayers. Herein, graphene oxide (GO) paper as an interlayer has been implemented between the sulfur cathode fabricated by the vapor deposition process as a binder-free electrode and a separator in a Li-S battery in order to gain a sufficient capacity. The morphological characteristics and electrochemical performance of the fabricated electrode have been investigated. The fabricated battery demonstrates an initial discharge capacity of 1265.46 mAh g-1 at the current density of 100... 

Green tea-reduced graphene oxide (GT-rGO) sheets have been exploited for high efficiency near infrared (NIR) photothermal therapy of HT29 and SW48 colon cancer cells. The biocompatibility of GT-rGO sheets was investigated by means of MTT assays. The polyphenol constituents of GT-rGO act as effective targeting ligands for the attachment of rGO to the surface of cancer cells, as confirmed by the cell granularity test in flow cytometry assays and also by scanning electron microscopy. The photo-thermal destruction of higher metastatic cancer cells (SW48) is found to be more than 20% higher than that of the lower metastatic one (HT29). The photo-destruction efficiency factor of the GT-rGO is... 

Here, controlled growth of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) on free-standing porous activated reduced graphene oxide (a-rGO) paper was fabricated using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method. The electrochemical performance of prepared film was investigated to provide effective electrode for 3D flexible high-performance lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and supercapacitors. The results revealed that the prepared electrode exhibited a high specific capacitance of 347 F/g at 0.5 A/g in 1 M KOH electrolyte, 60% more than non-activated rGO-paper (218 F/g). The VACNTs on a-rGO have increased the accessible surface area and acted as efficient electrical conducting paths, which... 

In this study, we have experimentally investigated the electrical properties of graphene and its derivatives (Exfoliated graphene, CVD synthesized graphene, graphene oxide and hydrogenated graphene oxide) under uniaxial strain. We have used gauge factor as a common representation of the sensitivity of the strain sensors and found that the hydrogenated graphene oxide shows significantly higher responsivity comparing to other samples under study. Reproducibility, reliability and lack of hysteresis in the responses of the graphene based samples make them a good candidate to be used in the strain sensors. © 2018  

This study has investigated the effect of carbon coating on the electrochemical performance of SnO2 Nanowires (NWs) as an electrode along with a bis (trifluoromethane) sulfonimide lithium (LiTFSI)-based electrolyte in a lithium-ion battery (LIB). The vapor-liquid-solid approach has been used to grow SnO2 NWs on the stainless steel mesh current collector. The obtained results have demonstrated that the utilization of the LiTFSI-based electrolyte improved the battery performance with the SnO2 NWs electrode over the LiPF6-based electrolyte. This may be due to the formation of a stable and thin solid electrolyte interphase layer. Since bare SnO2 NWs exhibit inferior cycling stability due to... 

The current paper reports the deposition of sulfur micro-particles using sulfur vapor deposition (SVD). Sulfur particles in size of 5 to 45 μm were deposited on a stainless steel substrate to be used as the cathode with porous structure in lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Mass loading of about 0.5 mg cm-2 was obtained from this pure sulfur cathode. The structure of this binder-free cathode was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The electrochemical performance of the battery with two different organic liquid ether- and carbonate-based electrolytes was investigated and the results demonstrated that the... 

Introduction: In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been applied in various ways in medicine and dentistry. Advancements in AI technology show promising results in the practice of orthodontics. This scoping review aimed to investigate the effectiveness of AI-based models employed in orthodontic landmark detection, diagnosis, and treatment planning. Methods: A precise search of electronic databases was conducted, including PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Embase (English publications from January 2010 to July 2020). Quality Assessment and Diagnostic Accuracy Tool 2 (QUADAS-2) was used to assess the quality of the articles included in this review. Results: After applying... 

This study reports the successful fabrication of high-performance flexible binder-free lithium-ion battery anode and supercapacitor based on the synthesis of 3D hierarchical MnO2 nanoflakes (NFs) on vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) grown upon stainless steel (SS). The experimental results revealed that the prepared electrodes were well served as supercapacitors with a tremendous specific capacitance of MnO2 NFs VACNT/SS 1131 F/g at 0.25 A/g in 0.5 mol.L−1 Na2SO4, 518.8% more than VACNT/SS (218 F/g). Compared to other MnO2 NFs/CNT composites, as-fabricated binder-free MnO2 NFs/VACNTs electrode achieves outstanding performance with high initial discharge and charge capacities of... 

This study reports the successful fabrication of high-performance flexible binder-free lithium-ion battery anode and supercapacitor based on the synthesis of 3D hierarchical MnO2 nanoflakes (NFs) on vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) grown upon stainless steel (SS). The experimental results revealed that the prepared electrodes were well served as supercapacitors with a tremendous specific capacitance of MnO2 NFs VACNT/SS 1131 F/g at 0.25 A/g in 0.5 mol.L−1 Na2SO4, 518.8% more than VACNT/SS (218 F/g). Compared to other MnO2 NFs/CNT composites, as-fabricated binder-free MnO2 NFs/VACNTs electrode achieves outstanding performance with high initial discharge and charge capacities of... 

A sensitive glutamate biosensor is prepared based on glutamate dehydrogenase/vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (GLDH, VACNTs). Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes were grown on a silicon substrate by direct current plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (DC-PECVD) method. The electrochemical behavior of the synthesized VACNTs was investigated by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopic methods. Glutamate dehydrogenase covalently attached on tip of VACNTs. The electrochemical performance of the electrode for detection of glutamate was investigated by cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry. Differential pulse voltammetric determinations of glutamate are performed... 

We have investigated the piezoelectric response of the hydrogenated graphene oxide (H-G-SiO2) stacks both experimentally and theoretically. The piezoresponse force microscopy method and density-functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to study the piezoresponse effect of this structure from both experimental and computational point of views. A mono-layer graphene, made by chemical vapour deposition method, is deposited on Si/SiO2 substrate and its surface is then functionalized with hydrogen atoms. The vertical piezoresponse, observed by piezoresponse force microscopy, is measured to be about 2146 pC N-1, that is comparable to the reported state of the art piezoelectric materials such... 

In this report, the fabrication of vertically aligned carbon nanotube nanoelectrode array (VACNT-NEA) by photolithography method is presented. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy as well as cyclic voltammetry was performed to characterize the arrays with respect to different diffusion regimes. The fabricated array illustrated sigmoidal cyclic voltammogram with steady state current dominated by radial diffusion. The fabricated VACNT-NEA and high density VACNTs were employed as electrochemical glutamate biosensors. Glutamate dehydrogenase is covalently attached to the tip of CNTs. The voltammetric biosensor, based on high density VACNTs, exhibits a sensitivity of 0.976 mA mM-1 cm-2 in the... 

SnO2 is considered as one of the high specific capacity anode materials for Lithium-ion batteries. However, the low electrical conductivity of SnO2 limits its applications. This manuscript reports a simple and efficient approach for the synthesis of Sb-doped SnO2 nanowires (NWs) core and carbon shell structure which effectively enhances the electrical conductivity and electrochemical performance of SnO2 nanostructures. Sb doping was performed during the vapor-liquid-solid synthesis of SnO2 NWs in a horizontal furnace. Subsequently, carbon nanolayer was coated on the NWs using the DC Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition approach. The carbon-coated shell improves the Solid-Electrolyte... 

Bioinspired materials can mimic the stem cell environment and modulate stem cell differentiation and proliferation. In this study, biomimetic micro/nanoenvironments were fabricated by cell-imprinted substrates based on mature human keratinocyte morphological templates. The data obtained from atomic force microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed that the keratinocyte-cell-imprinted poly(dimethylsiloxane) casting procedure could imitate the surface morphology of the plasma membrane, ranging from the nanoscale to the macroscale, which may provide the required topographical cell fingerprints to induce differentiation. Gene expression levels of the genes analyzed...