Top-down preparation

Describe what is meant by bottom up and top down preparations of nanoscale materials. 

It is generally experienced that a relaxing interface tends to minimize its area. This tendency results from a contractile force in the interface, which is referred to as interfacial tension. As a consequence, work has to be added to enlarge the interfacial area, as is done extensively in top-down preparation of micro- and nanostructures. 

Svrcek V, Fujiwara H, Kondo M (2009) Top-down prepared silicon nanocrystals and a conjugated polymer-based bulk heterojunction Optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications. Acta Mater 57 5986... 

Different synthetic methodologies can be pursued to prepare hierarchical porous zeolites, which can be discriminated as bottom-up and top-down approaches. Whereas bottom-up approaches frequently make use of additional templates, top-down routes employ preformed zeolites that are modified by preferential extraction of one constituent via a postsynthesis treatment For the sake of conciseness, we restrict ourselves here to the discussion of the latter route. Regarding bottom-up approaches, recently published reviews provide state-of-the-art information on these methodologies [8, 9,17-19]. 

The synthesis of bimetallic nanoparticles is mainly divided into two methods, i.e., chemical and physical method, or bottom-up and top-down method. The chemical method involves (1) simultaneous or co-reduction, (2) successive or two-stepped reduction of two kinds of metal ions, and (3) self-organization of bimetallic nanoparticle by physically mixing two kinds of already-prepared monometallic nanoparticles with or without after-treatments. Bimetallic nanoparticle alloys are prepared usually by the simultaneous reduction while bimetallic nanoparticles with core/shell structures are prepared usually by the successive reduction. In the preparation of bimetallic nanoparticles, one of the most interesting aspects is a core/shell structure. The surface element plays an important role in the functions of metal nanoparticles like catal5dic and optical properties, but these properties can be tuned by addition of the second element which may be located on the surface or in the center of the particles adjacent to the surface element. So, we would like to use following marks to inscribe the bimetallic nanoparticles composed of metal 1, Mi and metal 2, M2. 

Printable elements, especially those prepared by top-down methods, are often prepared such that they are attached to the mother substrate by tethers and anchoring structures that keep the otherwise freestanding elements in place. To separate elements from the mother substrate in the retrieval step, stamps must successfully break these tethers, which are typically composed of the same inorganic material as the elements. This process often requires careful design of the elements and tethers such that the elements separate by well-controlled and reliable fracture. Simple fracture theory63 points to several important factors that lead to easy fracture, notably the presence of cracks in the inorganic material and the geometry of those cracks. 

Engineered nanoparticles can be prepared in two ways top-down by breaking apart conventional bulk substances, or bottom-up by building up structures from the molecular scale. There also is a growing trend to combine the top-down and bottom-up approaches to produce more sophisticated nanoparticle systems (Horn and Rieger, 2001). 

With direction from the Quality Assurance Unit, have laboratory personnel themselves prepare for implementation. Do not impose changes from the top down. 

This argument shows that the processes used for the production of very small particles must be carefully controlled in order that a minimum number of additional defects is introduced. Various sophisticated processes have been developed which allow nanoparticles to be prepared, showing more less controlled nanostructures. These processes may involve size reduction of larger particles (top-down approach) or direct nanoparticle growth (bottom-up approach). The most important of these processes are described in the following sections. 

Hydrogen decomposition desorption recombination (HDDR) process is the only top-down industrial process used for the preparation of coercive nanoparticles. This process applied to rare-earth transition-metal (RE-TM) alloys consists in heating the concerned alloy under hydrogen until it decomposes into a fine mixture of RE-hydride and TM. The hard magnetic phase is recombined with a much finer microstructure. This process was first developed to convert 100 microns sized cast Nd2Fei4B grains into 200-300 nm crystallites [18, 19]. Later, it has been applied to other RE-TM alloys [20, 21]. Recently, a new variation of this process has been developed towards developing texture in the final materials [22], It is briefly described below. 

Nanomaterials can be in the form of fibers (one-dimensional), thin films (two-dimensional), or particles (three-dimensional). A nanomaterial is any material that has at least one of its dimensions in the size range 1 to 100 nm (Figure 6.1). Many physical and chemical properties are determined by the very large surface area/volume ratio associated with such ultrasmall particles. There are two major categories into which all nanomaterial preparative techniques can be grouped the physical, or top-down, approach and the chemical, or bottom-up, approach. In this chapter, our primary focus is on chemical synthesis. Nevertheless, we discuss the physical methods briefly, as they have received a great deal more interest in the industrial sector because of their promise to produce large volumes of nanostructured solids. 

Supramolecular entities are prepared either by designed or self-assembly, or by the breakdown of larger species - the so-called bottom-up and top-down approaches respectively. Most supramolecular zinc compounds have been obtained by self-assembly methods, often operating in a rather hit-and-miss way. However, controlled cleavage of coordination polymers should prove a useful route to predesigned supramolecular assemblies. An example of this approach is provided by the... 

As a probe of lattice vibrations, Raman spectroscopy is very sensitive to intrinsic crystal properties and extrinsic stimuli, especially in semiconductors. It may be employed to study crystal structure and quality, crystal orientation, optical interactions, chemical composition, phases, dopant concentration, surface and interface chemistry, and local temperatme or strain. As an optical technique, important sample information may be obtained rapidly and nondestructively with minimal sample preparation. Submicron lateral resolution is possible with the use of confo-cal lenses. These features have made it a vital tool for research labs studying semiconductor-based technologies. They also are increasingly important for the study of semiconductor NWs fabricated by both top-down and bottom-up approaches since many of the common characterization methods used with bulk crystals or thin films cannot be applied to NWs in a direct manner. 

The same concept in proteomics studies has technological implications, e.g., which method, sample preparation protocols, and instrumentation will be used. Again, top-down analysis will be based on isolation, analysis, and characterization of an intact protein to reveal its function. Fourier transformed ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR) (Marshall et al., 1998) facilitates such approach in protein identification as a result of random fragmentation of an intact molecule. In contrary, bottom-up approach is based on up-front fragmentation of the protein in question using various proteolytic enzymes with known specificity (Chalmers et al., 2005 Millea et al., 2006). In these experiments, trypsin is most commonly used. An important question that remains is whether more... 

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