Introduction of microfluidic mixing technique opens a new door for preparation of the liposomes and lipid-based nanoparticles by on-chip technologies that are applicable in a laboratory and industrial scale. This study demonstrates the role of phospholipid bilayer fragment as the key intermediate in the mechanism of liposome formation by microfluidic mixing in the channel with “herring-bone” geometry used with the instrument NanoAssemblr. The fluidity of the lipid bilayer expressed as fluorescence anisotropy of the probe N,N,N-Trimethyl-4-(6-phenyl-1,3,5-hexatrien-1-yl) was found to be the basic parameter affecting the final size of formed liposomes prepared by microfluidic mixing of an ethanol solution of lipids and water phase. Both saturated and unsaturated lipids together with various content of cholesterol were used for liposome preparation and it was demonstrated, that an increase in fluidity results in a decrease of liposome size as analyzed by DLS. Gadolinium chelating lipids were used to visualize the fine structure of liposomes and bilayer fragments by CryoTEM. Experimental data and theoretical calculations are in good accordance with the theory of lipid disc micelle vesiculation.

Electric-field assisted assembly has been used to place rod-shaped metal nanowires containing 4-{[2-nitro-4-(phenylethynyl)phenyl]ethynyl}benzenethiol molecules onto lithographically defined metal pads. In these systems the current–voltage characteristics exhibited negative differential resistance at room temperature with on–off peak-to-valley ratios of 1.80 to 2.21.

Industrial applications of plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (CVD) diamond grown on large area substrates, 3D shapes, at low substrate temperatures and on standard engineering substrate materials require novel plasma concepts. Based on the pioneering work of the group at AIST in Japan, the high-density coaxial delivery type of plasmas has been explored (Tsugawa et al 2006 New Diamond Front. Carbon Technol. 16 337–46). However, an important challenge is to obtain commercially interesting growth rates at very low substrate temperatures. In this work we introduce the concept of novel linear antenna sources, designed at Leybold Optics Dresden, using high-frequency pulsed MW discharge with a high plasma density. This type of pulse discharges leads to the preparation of nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) thin films, compared with ultra-NCD thin films prepared in (Tsugawa et al 2006 New Diamond Front. Carbon Technol. 16 337–46). We present optical emission spectroscopy data for the CH₄–CO₂–H₂ gas chemistry and we discuss the basic properties of the NCD films grown.