On 2014 Nov 17, Raphael Levy commented:

This article is the first in the "stripy nanoparticle" series. It has been followed by over 35 articles, yet it is based on a scanning tunneling microscopy artefact.

The evidence behind the structure and special properties of “striped” nanoparticles has been challenged by Cesbron Y, 2012. The publication in 2012 of Cesbron Y, 2012 took three years and has been followed by post-publication peer review of the various existing and new stripy articles on my blog, PubPeer, etc. This specific article is discussed in particular here

A further detailed analysis of this body of work is published today in PloS One by Stirling et al; from the abstract: “through a combination of an exhaustive re-analysis of the original data with new experimental measurements of a simple control sample comprising entirely unfunctionalised particles, we conclusively show that all of the STM evidence for striped nanoparticles published to date can instead be explained by a combination of well-known instrumental artefacts, strong observer bias, and/or improper data acquisition/analysis protocols.”

On 2014 Nov 17, Raphael Levy commented:

This article is the first in the "stripy nanoparticle" series. It has been followed by over 35 articles, yet it is based on a scanning tunneling microscopy artefact.

The evidence behind the structure and special properties of “striped” nanoparticles has been challenged by Cesbron Y, 2012. The publication in 2012 of Cesbron Y, 2012 took three years and has been followed by post-publication peer review of the various existing and new stripy articles on my blog, PubPeer, etc. This specific article is discussed in particular here

A further detailed analysis of this body of work is published today in PloS One by Stirling et al; from the abstract: “through a combination of an exhaustive re-analysis of the original data with new experimental measurements of a simple control sample comprising entirely unfunctionalised particles, we conclusively show that all of the STM evidence for striped nanoparticles published to date can instead be explained by a combination of well-known instrumental artefacts, strong observer bias, and/or improper data acquisition/analysis protocols.”