Oxygen self-doping in hollandite-type vanadium oxyhydroxide nanorods

A nonaqueous liquid-phase route involving the reaction of vanadium oxychloride with benzyl alcohol leads to the formation of single-crystal line and semiconducting VO1.52(OH)(0.77) nanorods with an ellipsoidal morphology, up to 500 nm in length and typically about 100 nm in diameter. Composition, structure, and morphology were thoroughly analyzed by neutron and synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction as well as by different electron microscopy techniques (SEM, (HR)TEM, EDX, and SAED). The data obtained point to a hollandite-type structure which, unlike other vanadates, contains oxide ions in the channels along the c-axis, with hydrogen atoms attached to the edge-sharing oxygen atoms, forming OH groups. According to structural probes and magnetic measurements (1.94 mu(B)/V), the formal valence of vanadium is +3.81 (V4+/V3+ atomic ratio approximate to 4). The experimentally determined density of 3.53(5) g/cm(3) is in good agreement with the proposed structure and nonstoichiometry. The temperature-dependent DC electrical conductivity exhibits Arrhenius-type behavior with a band gap of 0.64 eV. The semiconducting behavior is interpreted in terms of electron hopping between vanadium cations of different valence states (small polaron model). Ab initio density-functional calculations with a local spin density approximation including orbital potential (LSDA + U with an effective U value of 4 eV) have been employed to extract the electronic structure. These calculations propose, on the one hand, that the electronic conductivity is based on electron hopping between neighboring V3+ and V4+ sites, and, on the other hand, that the oxide ions in the channels act as electron donors, increasing the fraction of V3+ cations, and thus leading to self-doping. Experimental and simulated electron energy-loss spectroscopy data confirm both the presence of V4+ and the validity of the density-of-states calculation. Temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate strongly frustrated antiferromagnetic interactions between the vanadium ions. A model involving the charge order of the V3+ sites is proposed to account for the observed formation of the magnetic moment below 25 K.