Nano-sized cube-shaped single crystalline oxides and their potentials; composition, assembly and functions

Abstract

Nanocrystals, especially with an anisotropic shape such as cubic, are candidates as building blocks for new bottom-up approaches to materials assembly, yielding a functional architecture. Such materials also receive attention because of their intrinsic size-dependent properties and resulting applications. Here, we report synthesis and characteristics of CeO2, BaTiO3 and SrTiO3 nanocubes and the ordered assemblies. The importance of shape as well as size distribution is clarified for the bottom-up development of 3D fine structures. CeO2 nanocube assemblies with enhanced surface of specified crystal planes such as (100) and (111) would open new surface-dominant devices. BaTiO3 and SrTiO3 nanocubes with narrow size distributions and robust diversity in compositions were obtained. BaTiO3 films made up of ordered nanocube assemblies were fabricated on various substrates by evaporation-induced self-assembly method. Regardless of the substrate, the nanocubes exhibited {100} orientations and a high degree of face-to-face ordering, which remained even after heat treatment at 850°C. The supracrystal films exhibited distinct ferroelectric behaviors.