Open Access Article
Tomohiro
Okita
a,
Ryoma
Uchida
a,
Atsushi
Shimojima
abc and
Takamichi
Matsuno†
*abc
aDepartment of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan. E-mail: matsuno@aoni.waseda.jp
bWaseda Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan
cKagami Memorial Research Institute for Materials Science and Technology, Waseda University, 2-8-26 Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051, Japan
First published on 30th March 2026
The properties of nanoporous metal oxides depend on their pore structure and the internal structure of the pore walls, and precise control of such factors is crucial. In particular, single-crystalline nanoporous metal oxides, in which the pore walls consist of a single crystal, exhibit characteristics of both single crystals and nanoporous materials that are distinct from conventional polycrystalline materials. Herein, we report the synthesis of single-crystalline mesoporous indium tin oxide (ITO) with a pore diameter of ∼30 nm and a controlled Sn/In ratio. The synthesis was achieved using regularly arranged silica nanospheres (silica colloidal crystals) as a template, followed by crystal growth of ITO within the template by oxidation of metal chloride precursors. By increasing the oxygen-to-metal chloride ratio, crystal growth outside the template was suppressed and the volatilization of Sn species was reduced, thereby enabling an increase in the Sn/In molar ratio to 0.10, which is critical for electrical conductivity.
As synthetic methods for growing metal oxide crystals inside templates, calcination of low-melting-point metal salts10,11 and solvothermal processes12–18 have been widely developed. In the calcination process, the precursor infiltrated into the template melts and decomposes upon heating, allowing nucleation and crystal growth to proceed within the molten salt. However, this method requires selecting precursors with melting points lower than the decomposition temperature. Furthermore, controlling nucleation and crystal growth through decomposition and combustion during high-temperature calcination is difficult, making it unsuitable for many metal oxides. In contrast, the solvothermal method, in which a template is immersed in a precursor solution and heated under high pressure, causes nucleation and crystal growth of metal oxides within the liquid phase. The continuous supply of the precursor in solution yields metal oxide single crystals with relatively large crystal sizes. However, controlling selective nucleation and growth within the template is difficult. Furthermore, hydroxides and/or oxyhydroxides may be formed instead of the desired oxide. For these reasons, previous reports on single-crystalline nanoporous oxides synthesized by the solvothermal method are limited to certain oxides, such as SnO2,12,13 TiO2,12,14,15 CeO2,12 BiVO4,16 and zeolites.17,18 In addition to the above two methods, a technique using mineralizers to crystallize metal oxides at relatively low temperatures19 has also been reported, but it is limited to synthesizing quartz.20,21 Therefore, developing a method to realize single-crystalline nanoporous metal oxides for compounds that were previously difficult to synthesize, while controlling the nucleation and crystal growth processes, is an important challenge.
Recently, we discovered that single-crystalline nanoporous metal oxides with an inverse opal structure22 can be synthesized by a chemical-vapor-based confined crystal growth (C3) method, in which metal chlorides are heated and oxidized within the interparticle nanopores of silica colloidal crystals (SCCs) used as a template.23,24 The metal chloride volatilizes upon heating and undergoes oxidation while diffusing in the gas phase within the template. This process is considered to continuously supply the precursor to the metal oxide nucleus, enabling crystal growth. Because the metal chlorides themselves do not undergo thermal decomposition upon heating, nucleation and crystal growth are more controllable compared to the conventional calcination process. In the α-Fe2O3 system, it has been shown that crystallite size can potentially be tuned by varying the oxygen supply.23
A previous report demonstrated the synthesis of single-crystalline nanoporous indium tin oxides (ITOs), using SCCs as templates and indium chloride and tin chloride as precursors, and investigated their thermoelectric conversion performance.24 A decrease in thermal conductivity is important to improve the performance, and introducing a nanoporous structure is an effective way. However, in conventional approaches, the numerous grain boundaries in the pore walls caused an unintended decrease in electrical conductivity. In contrast, single-crystalline nanoporous ITOs could significantly reduce thermal conductivity while suppressing an unintended decrease in electrical conductivity by minimizing grain boundaries in the pore walls. Although clarifying the correlation between the porous structure and thermal and electrical conductivities is important, the previous study had limitations in controlling pore size, with the smallest pore size being 39 nm. This was due to a problem where part of the volatilized precursor diffused and precipitated outside the template, forming non-porous crystals. In particular, reducing the size of the silica nanospheres constituting SCCs to 28 nm led to crystallization primarily outside the template, and the synthesis of mesoporous ITOs was difficult. This is presumably due to the small pore size of the template, which slows down air diffusion into its interior. In addition, the Sn/In molar ratio, crucial for electrical conductivity, was lower than the target value of 0.10.25 The relatively high vapor pressure of SnCl4
26,27 likely caused faster volatilization than InCl3, leading to diffusion out of the template and a reduction in the doping amount.
In this study, to synthesize single-crystalline mesoporous ITO with a controlled composition, we increased the oxygen-to-metal chloride ratio within the SCCs by increasing the air volume in the calcination vessel and reducing the amount of metal chlorides infiltrated into the SCCs, thereby suppressing crystal growth outside the template while increasing the Sn/In ratio (Scheme 1). As a result, ITO was selectively crystallized within the SCCs composed of 29–30 nm silica nanospheres, successfully achieving the Sn/In ratio of 0.10. Furthermore, it was found that the crystallite size of the mesoporous ITOs varies with the oxygen-to-metal chloride ratio.
:
1390 H2O
:
5 THAM). The average diameter of the silica nanospheres slightly varied between batches, and the values were 29 nm (coefficient of variation (CV): 5.5%) and 30 nm (CV: 6.7%). The mean diameter and coefficient of variation were calculated by measuring the diameters of 100 silica nanospheres from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images. The silica nanosphere dispersion was dried at 40 °C, then calcined at 600 °C for 6 h to remove THAM (heating and cooling rate: 1.7 °C min−1), yielding SCCs composed of silica nanospheres with diameters of 29 nm or 30 nm. The samples are denoted as SCCs-29 and SCCs-30, respectively.
36 at 495.1 eV and 486.6 eV, respectively. The peaks corresponding to In 3d3/2 and In 3d5/2
36 were also observed at 451.6 eV and 444.2 eV. The In peaks were asymmetric, and curve fitting confirmed the presence of peaks derived from Sn–O–In.37 These results indicate the formation of Sn-doped indium oxides.
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| Fig. 1 XRD patterns of (a) ITO-29 and (b) ITO-29-pre. The simulated patterns of In2O3 based on ICDD data are shown at the bottom. | ||
The Sn/In ratio calculated from ICP-OES results was 0.019 for ITO-29 and 0.011 for ITO-29-pre, both lower than the composition ratio of the ITO precursor solution (0.10). This is considered to occur because SnCl4 has a higher vapor pressure than InCl3
26,27 (Fig. S4, SI), making it easier for SnCl4 to diffuse to the outside of the template before oxidation upon heating. This explanation is consistent with the result that the Sn/In ratio was lower for ITO-29-pre synthesized under conditions with less air.
SEM and TEM images (Fig. 2a–c) revealed mesoporous particles with regularly arranged spherical pores in ITO-29. The FFT pattern of the TEM image (Fig. 2d) showed regular spots corresponding to fcc [100], confirming the replication of the template's pore structure. The average pore diameter measured from TEM images was 28 nm (CV: 3.7%), almost consistent with the size of silica nanospheres. The SAED patterns measured in regions of several hundred nm in size (Fig. 2e) showed spots indicative of single-crystallinity. In many views, SAED patterns were slightly elongated in an arc shape, as represented in Fig. 2e, suggesting that the crystal orientations were not completely aligned in the same direction and that the pore walls of the mesoporous particles were distorted. Furthermore, some fields of view showed spots originating from multiple crystals, suggesting that two or more crystals may have coalesced during growth (Fig. S5, SI). Another cause is the presence of small fragments derived from mesoporous ITO on the particle (Fig. S5, SI). Based on the above results, synthesis of mesoporous ITO with an inverse opal structure composed of crystallites larger than several hundred nm was confirmed. In contrast, ITO-29-pre showed not only mesoporous structures but also non-porous particles (Fig. 2f–i), suggesting crystal growth occurred outside the template, as confirmed in the previous report.24
The T-SAXS patterns (Fig. S2a, SI) showed peaks attributed to an fcc structure for both samples, confirming the replication of the porous structure from the SCCs template. The center-to-center distance of the pores, calculated from the d value of the fcc 111 diffraction, was 28 nm, consistent with the average diameter of the silica nanospheres. The N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms (Fig. 3a) of both samples were type IV(a), showing a steep uptake at around P/P0 = 0.90. A significant difference in total adsorption capacity was observed between ITO-29 and ITO-29-pre. The BJH pore diameter distributions (Fig. 3b) showed an intense peak at 24 nm calculated from the adsorption isotherm, indicating the formation of uniform mesopores. The pore size distribution calculated from the desorption isotherm shows a peak at 11 nm, corresponding to the size of window pores connecting spherical mesopores. The pore volume of ITO-29 was 0.32 cm3 g−1, with a BET surface area of 83 m2 g−1. ITO-29-pre had a pore volume of 0.078 cm3 g−1 and a BET surface area of 36 m2 g−1. The pore volume of ITO-29 was relatively close to the geometrically calculated value assuming an ideal fcc structure (0.40 cm3 g−1) and was almost 4 times larger than that of ITO-29-pre. On a volumetric basis, ∼94% of ITO-29 consists of an inverse opal structure, while ITO-29-pre consists of ∼49% (see SI). In addition, the BET surface area of ITO-29 was close to the calculated value (85 m2 g−1) (see SI). These results indicate that crystal growth outside the template was significantly suppressed in ITO-29, yielding a mesoporous structure closer to the ideal inverse opal structure.
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| Fig. 3 (a) N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms and (b) BJH pore diameter distributions of (i) ITO-29 and (ii) ITO-29-pre (○: adsorption, •: desorption). | ||
Based on the above results, it was found that increasing the air volume during calcination facilitates the oxidation of metal chlorides within the template, thereby suppressing the volatilization of precursors outside the template. The sample yields were 49% for ITO-29 and 22% for ITO-29-pre, with the smaller vessel showing a lower yield. The ratio of oxygen inside the vessel to the amount required to oxidize all metal chlorides was 29% for the previously reported condition (note that a gap was present between the lid and vessel) and 265% for the condition of the present study. Therefore, the oxygen supply was insufficient under the previously reported condition. This likely caused leakage of metal chlorides from the template, resulting in the reduced yield of mesoporous ITO.
Changing the container size alone proved insufficient to suppress volatilization of the Sn species. Therefore, increasing the Sn/In ratio was attempted by increasing the precursor solution composition to Sn/In = 0.20 and reducing the amount of infiltrated precursor to one-tenth, thereby lowering the metal chloride concentration within the template. As a result, the formation of a single-crystalline mesoporous ITO with an inverse opal structure (ITO-30-0.2-dil), similar to ITO-29, was confirmed (Fig. 4 and Fig. S2, S3, and S6, SI), and the Sn/In ratio calculated from the ICP-OES result reached 0.10. The XRD pattern, N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms, XPS spectrum, and SAXS pattern showed almost no change compared with ITO-29. Based on the TEM images (Fig. 4d and Fig. S6a and c, SI), the average pore diameter was 28 nm (CV: 3.1%), also the same as ITO-29. The SAED patterns and corresponding DF-TEM images (Fig. 4e and Fig. S6b and d) show that the mesoporous ITO is composed of multiple crystals, suggesting the coalescence of crystals during growth. It was found that the average size was ∼600 nm (CV: 35.7%), which is smaller than those of ITO-29 (1.7 μm, CV: 42.7%) and ITO-29-pre (3.5 μm, CV: 76.0%). This difference would be due not to mechanical destruction, but an increase in nucleation frequency caused by a relatively higher oxygen content compared to ITO-29 and ITO-29-pre, and a decrease in crystal growth rate caused by a lower precursor concentration in the gas phase. This is consistent with the finding that no fractured nanoporous structures were observed by electron microscopy analyses for ITO-29 and ITO-30-0.2-dil.
In the ITO-30-0.2, where only the composition ratio of the precursor was changed to Sn/In = 0.20 without altering the concentration, the Sn/In ratio in the sample was 0.018. The Sn/In ratio is almost identical to that of ITO-29, indicating that even when the amount of Sn in the precursor is increased, most of the tin chloride volatilizes under conditions where sufficient oxidation does not occur. Based on the characterization of ITO-30-0.2 (Fig. S7, SI), the crystal structure and nanoporous structure of ITO-30-0.2 were almost the same as those of ITO-29.
According to the ITO-30-0.2 result, the Sn/In ratio in the precursor solution did not improve the Sn/In ratio; rather, increasing the oxygen-to-metal chloride ratio within the template by reducing the infiltration amount of the precursor solution was crucial. Although oxygen partial pressure may also influence nucleation and crystal growth, its effects remain unclear at this stage. To better understand the formation and crystal growth of metal oxides within nanopores, further exploration of synthesis conditions and applicable metal oxide systems is needed.
Footnote |
| † Present address: Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, 1-21-1 Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051, Japan. |
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2026 |