| AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Nanometer-scale Science and Technology | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session NS-TuP |
| Session: | Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Poster Session |
| Presenter: | I.B. Troitskaia, Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Russia |
| Authors: | I.B. Troitskaia, Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Russia V. Atuchin, Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Russia G.C. Franco, University of Texas at El Paso D.A. Ferrer, University of Texas at Austin M.A. Ramos, University of Texas at El Paso C.V. Ramana, University of Texas at El Paso |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
MoO is an interesting material for application in solid state microbatteries,electronic information displays, and optical memory and sensor devices. MoO3 exhibits several polymorphs and, hence, the controlled growth and structure of MoO3 are highly important. The successful efforts to synthesize metastable hexagonal phase (h–MoO3) have been very limited, partly due to the complications in stabilizing the metastable-phase as compared to the thermodynamically stable a -MoO3. As such, the physicochemical properties of the metastable h–MoO3 phase are largely unknown, in spite of the fact that metastable structures often demonstrate new or enhanced activity when compared to thermodynamically stable phases. Here, we demonstrate a simple low-temperature chemical method to produce metastable h-MoO3 nanorods and their excellent structural characteristics. Hexagonal MoO3 samples were prepared via the precipitation of molybdenum oxide from an ammonium paramolybdate solution, by the addition of nitric acid. The structure of h-MoO3 nano-rods was examined in detail using high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). A drop of the nanorods diluted in ethanol was added onto a carbon-coated TEM grid, and allowed to evaporate for analysis on a FEI Tecnai TF20 (200kV) equipped with a STEM unit, high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) detector and X-Twin lenses. The SEM data reveal that the nano-rod h-MoO3 crystals have the shape of straight hexagonal rods with an aspect ratio ~60. The HR-TEM results confirm the hexagonal structure of the MoO3 nanocrystals. Computations of the observed TEM data along with x-ray diffraction pattern further confirm the stability of the nano-structure of h-MoO3 rods. The results obtained are presented and discussed.