A novel method for massive synthesis of SnO2 nanowires

Abstract

This paper reports a simple, inexpensive and fast method to prepare SnO2 nanowires. A large amount of ultra-long high purity single-crystalline SnO2 nanowires with rutile structure, that is over hundreds of micrometers in length and 20-100 nm in diameter, have been synthesized through a one-step typical thermite reaction at 200 °C in O 2 atmosphere, with a gas pressure of 0.9 atm. These SnO2 nanowires do not grow in one direction as those synthesized by other methods do, and are perfect single crystals without any dislocation or point defects detected in TEM images. The optoelectronic properties of these smooth and uniform nanowires have been characterized by means of X-ray photoelectron spectra, laser Raman spectrum and Fourier transform infrared spectrum. The result of X-ray photoelectron spectra analysis shows that some oxygen vacancies exist in these SnO2 nanowires. In addition, possible growth mechanism of the SnO2 nanowires has been described in detail by the studies of comparative experiments, which is quite different from that of SnO2 nanowires synthesized by some other methods. © 2013 Indian Academy of Sciences.