Publications by Maria Ricci | EPFL Graph Search

Conductive-probe atomic force microscopy as a characterization tool for nanowire-based solar cells

Anna Fontcuberta i Morral, Federico Matteini, Esther Alarcon Llado, Gözde Tütüncüoglu, Jelena Vukajlovic Plestina, Dmitry Mikulik, Maria Ricci, Natasa Vulic

The photonic properties of nanowires advocate for their utilization in next generation solar cells. Compared to traditional devices, the electric scheme is transformed from a single into an ensemble of pn junctions connected in parallel. This new configura ...

Elsevier Science Bv2017

Growth and dissolution of calcite in the presence of adsorbed stearic acid

Francesco Stellacci, Georg Fantner, Kislon Voitchovsky, Blake William Erickson, Maria Ricci, Juan José Segura Sugranes

The interaction of organic molecules with the surface of calcite plays a central role in many geochemical, petrochemical and industrial processes and in biomineralization. Adsorbed organics, typically fatty acids, can interfere with the evolution of calcit ...

American Chemical Society2015

Characterization of Solid-Liquid Interfaces with High-Resolution Atomic Force Microscopy

Maria Ricci

Solid-liquid interfaces are ubiquitous. Despite the unquestioned relevance, many scientific research fields rely on simplified or macroscopic descriptions, discarding the molecular nature of the constituents. However, it is the specific molecular interacti ...

EPFL2015

Lipid tail protrusions mediate the insertion of nanoparticles into model cell membranes

Francesco Stellacci, Kislon Voitchovsky, Maria Ricci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva, Javier Reguera Gomez

Recent work has demonstrated that charged gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) protected by an amphiphilic organic monolayer can spontaneously insert into the core of lipid bilayers to minimize the exposure of hydrophobic surface area to water. However, the kinetic ...

Nature Publishing Group2014

Water-induced correlation between single ions imaged at the solid-liquid interface

Kislon Voitchovsky, Peter Spijker, Maria Ricci

When immersed into water, most solids develop a surface charge, which is neutralized by an accumulation of dissolved counterions at the interface. Although the density distribution of counterions perpendicular to the interface obeys well-established theori ...

Nature Publishing Group2014

Direct Visualization of Single Ions in the Stern Layer of Calcite

Jean-François Molinari, Francesco Stellacci, Kislon Voitchovsky, Peter Spijker, Maria Ricci

Calcite is among the most abundant minerals on earth and plays a central role in many environmental and geochemical processes. Here we used amplitude modulation atomic force microscopy (AFM) operated in a particular regime to visualize single ions close to ...

American Chemical Society2013