“…Different synthesis routes have been explored to obtain 0D nanoparticles or nanoflakes from alkaline niobates such as mechano-chemical milling (Kong et al, 2008;Schwesyg et al, 2007), nonaqueous route (Niederberger et al, 2004), sol-gel method (L. H. Wang et al, 2007) or hydrothermal route . Almost simultaneously, anisotropic alkaline niobates 1D structure were synthesized with various methods such as template assisted pyrolysis resulting in regular arrays of tubes (Zhao et al, 2005), solution-phase synthesis resulting in rod-like structures (Wood et al, 2008), or hydrothermal route giving free-standing nanowires with high aspect ratio (Magrez et al, 2006). Up to now, the nanomaterials properties have been well characterized using standard materials sciences methods like X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron (SEM) or transmission electron (TEM) microscopy.…”