Silicone-oil-assisted synthesis of high-quality sodium niobate nanowires

Abstract

Morphology control is important for nanocrystal engineering, and surfactants are usually employed as soft templates for the synthesis of nanocrystals with defined shape. Herein, we employed silicone oil as a surfactant for the first time and demonstrated its effectiveness in the controlled synthesis of uniform Na₂Nb₂O₆·H₂O nanowires; these nanowires can be further transformed into perovskite-type monocrystalline NaNbO₃ nanowires. Via combining morphology and phase analysis, it was shown that the addition of silicone oil in the hydrothermal processing of Na₂Nb₂O₆·H₂O nanowires greatly suppressed the production of the impurity phase and broadened the range of the required reaction duration, leading to a facile synthesis of high-quality sodium niobate nanowires. The effect of the silicone oil concentration was also studied, and it was found that there existed an optimum concentration of silicone oil that resulted in the most uniform Na₂Nb₂O₆·H₂O nanowires with nearly 100% phase purity.