Cupric oxide (CuO) nanowires were produced by thermal oxidation of copper surfaces at temperatures up to 450 °C. Three different surfaces, namely a copper foil as well as evaporation deposited copper and an application relevant sputtered copper film on Si(100) substrates were characterized ex-situ before and after the experiment. The development of oxide layers and nanowires were monitored in-situ using grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering. The number density of nanowires is highest for the sputtered surface and lowest for the surface prepared by evaporation deposition. This can be linked to different oxide grain sizes and copper grain boundary diffusions on the different surfaces. Small grains of the copper substrate and high surface roughness thereby lead to promoted growth of the nanowires.

A heating stage originally designed for diffraction experiments is implemented into a Bruker NANOSTAR instrument for in situ grazing incidence small-angle x-ray scattering experiments. A controlled atmosphere is provided by a dome separating the sample environment from the evacuated scattering instrument. This dome is double shelled in order to enable cooling water to flow through it. A mesoporous silica film templated by a self-assembled block copolymer system is investigated in situ during step-wise heating in air. The GISAXS pattern shows the structural development of the ordered lattice of parallel cylindrical pores. The deformation of the elliptical pore-cross section perpendicular to the film surface was studied with increasing temperature. Moreover, the performance of the setup was tested by controlled in situ heating of a copper surface under controlled oxygen containing atmosphere.

Chemical gas sensors are operated at elevated temperatures and the actual temperature has a tremendous influence on sensitivity and selectivity. From that perspective, precise temperature control over the chip is an absolute requirement. Next to a stable heating system, a controlled gas flow in the test box is required. The test gases should not cool down the sensor surface too much and not be heated up by the heater. To make the material integration easy and reduce the costs for sensor platforms, often rather large sensor devices are fabricated. We demonstrate that a combined approach of thermal analysis and computational fluid dynamics enables the co-design of gas flow path and heater to archive precise temperature conditions at the sensor material and in the surrounding test gas atmosphere.

A worldwide unique CMOS based chemical sensor device comprising an array of 8 microhotplates (µhps) for a total of 16 chemical sensors has been fabricated (Figure 1).

Globalization and digitalization have yielded new challenges in the B2B sales environment. Besides positive also negative effects appeared in the last decades. Customer behaviour is becoming more complex, and the rivalry between the firms is getting more aggressive. Especially product-centred firms strive to fulfil their financial targets. The actual situation of COVID-19 amplify this situation. This new challenge entails firms and salespeople to find new resilient ways to survive and overcome crisis’s and resist the rivalry of competitors. The present article is based on the theoretical and extant literature of solution selling and customer solutions in different industries. Potential effects on solution selling will be discussed and contributed through empirical interviews with people in a leadership position in sales. This article analyses the individual perception of related stakeholders in B2B sales and will provide valuable insights on solution selling concerning their resilient attribute. This present review will contribute scholars on the existing literature and firms which are seeking for methods to distinct from competitors and to overcome crisis´s. Finally, the gaps in the scientific literature will be discussed for further research.