Hydrothermal synthesis of SnO2 nanostructures with different morphologies and their optical properties

Abstract

SnO2 hollow spheres and nanorods were prepared by an aqueous sol-gel route involving the reaction of tin chloride and sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) in hexanol and heptane under the different hydrothermal treating temperature and time. X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra, Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectrum, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) and Raman spectroscopy were used to examine the morphology and microstructure to find out the cause. The result indicates that the products are hollow spheres with diameters of approximately 200-900nm and shell thickness of 60-70nm via hydrothermal treating at 160°C and one-dimensional rod-like nanostructures with diameters of approximately 20-40nm and lengths of 100-300nm via hydrothermal treating at 180 and 200°C, respectively. Room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) properties were investigated under the excitation of 275nm. The samples exhibited the emission peaks of room-temperature photoluminescence. © 2011 Lin Tan et al.