Synthesis of novel SnO2 quantum cubes and their selfassembly

Abstract

Nano-structured cubic SnO2 crystalines were successfully synthesized through solvothermal route. The obtained products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution TEM (HRTEM). The study showed that, the SnO2 particles were rutile structured and almost uniformly cube shaped crystals in quantum size (3–8 nm). Self-assembly behavior of the cubic SnO2 quantum dots was also observed. The synthesis process can be defined as an nonhydrolysis (NH) hydroxylation reaction provided by the amide elimination of carboxylated precursors. The formation of cubic morphology of SnO2 can be ascribed to the mild reaction featured by high nucleation rate and low growth rate, surface energy difference of the crystallographic facets of SnO2 and the passivation effect of the starting material-dodecylamine which drastically reduced the dipole interation. The selfassembly of the cubic SnO2 quantum dots was driven by van der Waals force and capillary force.