A double peak in the violet region between 360 and 400 nm is observed from the photoluminescence spectra acquired from cuboid SnO2 nanocrystals and the energy separation between the two subpeaks increases with nanocrystal size. The phenomenon arises from band edge recombination caused by different in-depth distributions of oxygen vacancies (OVs). Density functional theory calculations disclose that variations in the oxygen vacancies with depth introduce valence-band peak splitting leading to the observed splitting and shift of the double peak.

Nanoscale spherical, cubic, and cuboid SnO2 nanocrystals (NCs) are used to investigate morphology-dependent low-frequency Raman scattering. A double-peak structure in which the linewidths and energy separation between two subpeaks decrease with increasing sizes of cuboid NCs is observed and attributed to the surface acoustic phonon modes confined in three dimensional directions and determined by the surface/interface compositions. The decrease in energy separation is due to weaker coupling between the acoustic modes in different vibration directions. Our experimental and theoretical studies clearly disclose the morphology-dependent surface vibrational behavior in self-assembled NCs.