Synthesis, characterization and properties of hierarchically assembled antimony oxyhalides nanonetworks

The novel synthesis route has been developed for hierarchically structured; nanorods and nanosheets of Sb 4 O 5 Cl 2 from a single precursor, with dimension range between 57–90 nm. X-ray powder diffraction analysis confirmed the monoclinic crystal symmetry in P 2 1 / c (14) with structure type Sb 4 O 5 Cl 2 for both forms; the nanorods and nanosheets. Rietveld refinements and crystallite size investigations of the powder patterns revealed significant enhancement in intensity with subtle variation in the lattice parameters and crystallite size decrease in case of nanosheets in comparison to the nanorods assembly. Through scanning electron microscopy, a composition commensurate to Sb 4 O 5 Cl 2 at% with averaged dimensions; dia. ∼90 nm, l ∼ 2 μ m for nanorods and dia. ∼50–150 nm for nanosheets got corroborated. Owing to the quantum confinement a band gap widening was observed while moving from bulk to nano regime, i.e. 3.25, 3.31 and 3.34 eV, for bulk, nanosheets, and nanorods, respectively. In the case of nanosheets, the highest value of dielectric constant was observed, i.e. 87, as compared to nanorods and the bulk, i.e. 40 and 35.5, respectively. The nanosheets also showed the highest value of dielectric and tangent loss with an increase in frequency due to the least crystallite size of these nanonetworks. Nanosheets depicted the higher AC conductivity at low frequency due to the alignment of the charges but its value decreases at the higher frequency due to lack of time for charge reorientation. The hopping phenomenon was observed in all three cases with the most prominent one in bulk case at higher frequencies.