Growth mechanism and cathodoluminescence properties of indium hydroxide nanocubes synthesized from a simple aqueous solution

Abstract

Single-crystalline In(OH)(3) nanocubes were synthesized in a simple aqueous solution, without using a surfactant, at a temperature as low as 90 degrees C. To elucidate the growth mechanism, the structural evolution of In(OH)(3) nanocubes during the synthesis process were carefully examined. The experimental results showed that the formation of the In(OH)(3) nanocubes is primarily guided by the oriented attachment mechanism, following a zero-dimensional (0D) -> one-dimensional (1D) -> three-dimensional (3D) mode. The 0D In(OH)(3) nanoparticles will first assemble to form 1D nanorods, then the nanorods will orientedly attach to form 3D nanorod bundles and finally the In(OH)(3) nanorod bundles will fuse into strip-like or square nanocubes. Small strip-like or square nanocubes can further orientedly attach and fuse into big single-crystalline strip-like or square nanocubes. However, the growth of strip-like and square nanocubes may also occur based on the Ostwald ripening. The cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra at room temperature of the as-synthesized In(OH)(3) nanocubes exhibited a weak ultraviolet luminescence at 350 nm (3.54 eV) and a strong blue luminescence at 450 nm (2.75 eV), which can be attributed to the hydroxy ion defects generated by the incomplete reaction of the In(3+) ions with OH(-) radicals during the synthesis process

Phase Transition Behavior and Oriented Aggregation During Precipitation of In(OH)3 and InOOH Nanocrystals

“…A growth mechanism for In(OH) 3 nanocubes similar to that observed by us has been reported very recently by Jean et al 14 Consistent with our results Jean et al 14 observed that In(OH) 3 nanocubes predominantly form by a multistep OA mechanism. However, in contrast to our findings, Jean et al 14 do not observe InOOH as a second phase behind In(OH) 3 .…”

“…However, in contrast to our findings, Jean et al 14 do not observe InOOH as a second phase behind In(OH) 3 . Because Jean et al 14 use urea as the OH − source, they expect the release of OH − and the formation rate of In(OH) 3 particles to be slow.…”

Investigations of the stability of etched or platinized p-InP(100) photocathodes for solar-driven hydrogen evolution in acidic or alkaline aqueous electrolytes

“…Criteria of XPS peak assignments for different In-containing species [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. XPS data of the In metal foils showed slightly lower values (444.3-444.4 eV) for surface oxide (InO x ) over metallic In 0 , compared with ITO and other literature data.…”

“…In addition, the criteria of XPS peak assignments to various In-containing species including InP, InO x , In(OH) x and InPO x is shown in Table S4. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] We also collected XPS data of various control samples (InP with native oxide, ITO and In foils) on the same instrument to further support the XPS peak assignment, which are shown in Figure S33-35.…”

Controllable synthesis of hierarchical ZnO nanodisks for highly photocatalytic activity

“…It is known that hollow or big size nanostructures are usually formed by an Ostwald ripening process. [31][32][33] Herein, it should be noted that the outer size of hollow nanoparticles and microtyres is bigger than those of the initial products obtained in 10 min, which differ from the nanorings (60%) and nanodisks (90%). This suggests the nanoparticles and microtyres underwent an Ostwald ripening process after the orientation growth, not a simple etching process.…”