Antimony oxide nanobelts: synthesis by chemical vapour deposition and its characterisation

In recent days, antimony trioxide nanostructures have been exploited in diverse areas like electronics, optoelectronics and sensors and its interesting properties. There is not much reported literature available for the growth of antimony oxide (Sb2O3) nanostructure materials using thermal chemical vapour deposition, especially nanobelt-like morphology. This paper reports for the first time the growth of Sb2O3 nanobelts by self catalysis method using thermal chemical vapour deposition (T-CVD). The prepared nanobelts have been characterised for microstructure and morphological analysis. X-ray diffraction (XRD) shows the crystalline nature of the synthesised material, with a high purity cubic Sb2O3 structure. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirms the nanobelts with the thickness ranging from nanometres to micrometres and they showed diverse morphological structures in single frame. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) studies confirmed the Sb and O peaks. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) studies revealed the crystalline structure of the prepared nanobelts.