New progress in bismuth sulfide nanofabrics: high-yield synthesis, and study on growth and stability mechanism

Abstract

Rectangular grid-shaped bismuth sulfide planar networks, which consist of crossed bismuth sulfide single-crystalline nanorods, were easily synthesized in good yields here through a simple hydrothermal process. We investigated the oriented attachment growth process of nanorods and nanofabrics in detail by temporal evolution experiments. Significantly we have discovered the basic reasons for the stability of the grid structure: the grid is consolidated by mutually embedded joint in junctions of cross-rods and sub-nanorod-bridged growth between some parallel nanorods. These two consolidation behaviours were sufficiently characterized by TEM, SEM, and STEM. Three products of multiplication time intervals exhibit distinctive multi-peaked absorption in the ultraviolet region and efficient absorption in the visible region. Hopefully this strategy would motivate further studies of other ordered superstructures.