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Designing and manufacturing multifunctional nanoparticles (NPs) are of considerable interest for both academic and industrial research. Among NPs used in this field, iron oxide NPs show low toxicity compared to metallic ones and are thus of high interest for biomedical applications. In this work, superparamagnetic Fe3−δO4-based core/shell NPs were successfully prepared and characterized by the combination of different techniques, and their physical properties were investigated. We demonstrate the efficiency of the layer-by-layer process to graft polyelectrolytes on the surface of iron oxide NPs. The influence of the polyelectrolyte chain configuration on the magnetic properties of the Fe3−δO4/polymer core/shell NPs was enlightened. The simple and fast process described in this work is efficient for the grafting of polyelectrolytes from surfaces, and thus, derived Fe3−δO4 NPs display both the physical properties of the core and of the macromolecular shell. Finally, the cytotoxicity toward the human THP-1 monocytic cell line of the core/shell NPs was assessed. The results showed that the polymer-capped Fe3−δO4 NPs exhibited almost no toxicity after 24 h of exposure at concentrations up to 25 μg mL–1. Our results show that these smart superparamagnetic nanocarriers with stealth properties are promising for applications in multimodal cancer therapy, including drug delivery.

Nonwoven nanowire network fabrics of the material class La1−xSrxMnO3 (LSMO) with x = 0.2 were fabricated employing a sol-gel-process via electrospinning and a subsequent thermal treatment process based on thermal gravity analysis results. Investigations by means of scanning electron microscopy revealed an average diameter of the resulting nanowires of around 230 nm and a length of more than 100 μm. The chemical phases of the samples have been confirmed via X-Ray diffraction. The nanowires are polycrystalline with an average grain size of about 25 nm obtained from transmission electron microscopy. Analyses of the electronic transportation properties and of the magnetoresistive (MR) effects of the nanowire samples were carried out by a four probe measurement inside a bath cryostat in fields up to 10 T. Measurements of magnetization in the temperature range 2 K

Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi-2212) nanowires were fabricated employing electrospinning. A subsequent thermal treatment based on thermal gravity analysis is required to obtain the final crystal structure and superconductivity; however, if this preparation temperature is too high, the nanowire structure may completely collapse during the treatment, which is even more pronounced when aligning the nanowires. Therefore, Li acetate was added in various amounts to the starting composition, which enabled to produce the desired Bi-2212 phase already at about 750 °C instead of 840 °C. An X-ray and a TEM analysis proved that the resulting nanowires were single-phase Bi-2212. After the electro-spinning process, the resulting samples form fabric-like networks, and in the heat treatment, the nanowire structure was found to survive. The nanowires exhibited a polycrystalline structure with grain sizes of 20–50 nm, an average wire diameter of ∼100 nm, and a length of up to several micrometers. The resulting nanowire network samples were characterized by magnetic measurements and electric transport measurements in fields up to 9 and 4 T, respecitively.

Flux pinning forces were determined on different network samples of superconducting Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 (Bi-2212) nanowires prepared by the electrospinning technique. We employed magnetization data determined by SQUID magnetometry in a wide temperature range 10 K T 35 K, where a strong superconducting signal prevails. The scaling analysis of the pinning forces was applied to interprete the data obtained. Both pure and Li-doped Bi2212 nanowire networks exhibit a peak position of h 0 ∼ 0.11, which is smaller than the expected value of h 0 = 0.2 indicating flux pinning at grain boundaries or extended defects. For the flowing currents through such a network, the crystallographic anisotropy and the percolation play an important role, resulting in reduced peak positions as compared to bulk samples.

The development of catalysts as an alternative to platinum group metals (PGMs) has great importance to improve the efficiency of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, the novel amorphous ternary refractory metal selenides (MWSex; M = Co and Ni), which were synthesized by hot-injection approach, were firstly investigated on the electrocatalytic HER in alkaline media. Optical, electrochemical and magnetic properties of the electrocatalysts were explored, as well as the chemical structures and morphologies. These results clearly show that the obtained materials are having the amorphous crystal structure and are shaped as spherical and rod-like structures. Moreover, the addition of Ni and Co metals into the WSex structure were raised the catalytic activity of HER comparing to that of only WSex. This work paves the way for the exploration of copper-based amorphous selenides as electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution in order to replace noble metal Pt. © 2019 Elsevier B.V., 32-M-16 Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi 215M309, The authors would like to thank TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey ) (Grant number: 215M309 ), Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University , Scientific Research Foundation (Grand Number: 32-M-16 ) and Turkish Academy of Sciences via a TUBA-GEBIP fellowship for supporting this work. Appendix A

International audience; Various MgB2 thin films and single crystals were found in the literature to exhibit a sharp, narrow peak at low fields in the volume pinning force, Fp(H)-diagrams. The origin of this peak is associated with a steep drop of the current density when applying external magnetic fields and is ascribed to sample purity. We show here that bulk MgB2 prepared by spark-plasma sintering also shows the sharp, narrow peak in Fp. The peak is also seen in the volume pinning force scaling, Fp/Fp,max vs h = H/H irr. Furthermore, polycrystalline bulk MgB2 samples prepared close to the optimum reaction temperature reveal this peak effect as well, but other samples of the series show a regular scaling behavior. The combination of magnetization data with data from electric transport measurements on the same samples demonstrates the origin of this peak effect. On increasing preparation temperature, the pinning force scaling changes from grain boundary pinning to point pinning and the grain connectivity gets worse. Hence, the sharp, low-field peak in Fp vanishes. Therefore, the occurrence of the peak effect in Fp gives important information on the grain coupling in the MgB2 samples.