Low-temperature synthesis of large-scale single-crystal molybdenum trioxide (MoO3) nanobelts

Bulk quantities of single-crystal MoO3 nanobelts were synthesized by a low-temperature, simple solution method without using any templates or catalysts. X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, and energy-dispersive x-ray analysis indicated that as-synthesized nanobelts were pure orthorhombic structured MoO3 grown along [001], with the lengths up to more than 10 mum, width ranging between 50 and 400 nm, and width-to-thickness ratios of about 5 to 20. The possible growth mechanism and the influence factors were reported. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.