Hydrothermal Synthesis and Optical Properties of Single-Crystalline Bi<SUB>3.15</SUB>Nd<SUB>0.85</SUB>Ti<SUB>3</SUB>O<SUB>12</SUB> Nanoplates of Layered-Perovskite Structure

Abstract

Single-crystalline Bi3.15Nd0.85Ti3O12 (BNdT) nanoplates of bismuth-layered perovskite structure have been synthesized through hydrothermal process. The BNdT nanoplates possess well-defined tetragonal shapes with landscape dimension of 100-600 nm and thickness of 10-30 nm. The in-plane surfaces of tetragonal-shaped nanoplates lies on (001), and the side surfaces are (110) and (110). The BNdT nanoplates were formed due to the rather higher growth rate of a-b plane than that of c-axis. The optical absorption characteristics in UV-visible region demonstrated that the band gap of the BNdT nanoplates is 3.33 eV. The absorption bands around 516 nm, 526 nm, 585.6 nm, 684.6 nm and 750 nm should be assigned as transitions of Nd3+ from the ground state 4I9/2 to 2G9/2, 4G7/2, 2G7/2 or 4G5/2, 4F9/2 and 4S3/2 states, respectively.