Pressure-induced amorphization and polyamorphism in one-dimensional single crystal TiO2 nanomaterials

The structural phase transitions of single crystal TiO2-B nanoribbons were investigated in-situ at high-pressure using the synchrotron X-ray diffraction and the Raman scattering. Our results have shown a pressure-induced amorphization (PIA) occurred in TiO2-B nanoribbons upon compression, resulting in a high density amorphous (HDA) form related to the baddeleyite structure. Upon decompression, the HDA form transforms to a low density amorphous (LDA) form while the samples still maintain their pristine nanoribbon shape. HRTEM imaging reveals that the LDA phase has an {\alpha}-PbO2 structure with short range order. We propose a homogeneous nucleation mechanism to explain the pressure-induced amorphous phase transitions in the TiO2-B nanoribbons. Our study demonstrates for the first time that PIA and polyamorphism occurred in the one-dimensional (1D) TiO2 nanomaterials and provides a new method for preparing 1D amorphous nanomaterials from crystalline nanomaterials.Comment: 4 figure

Crystal Phase Transitions in the Shell of PbS CdS Core Shell Nanocrystals Influences Photoluminescence Intensity

ABSTRACT We reveal the existence of two different crystalline phases, i.e., the metastable rock salt and the equilibrium zinc blende phase within the CdS shell of PbS CdS core shell nanocrystals formed by cationic exchange. The chemical composition profile of the core shell nanocrystals with different dimensions is determined by means of anomalous small angle X ray scattering with subnanometer resolution and is compared to X ray diffraction analysis. We demonstrate that the photoluminescence emission of PbS nanocrystals can be drastically enhanced by the formation of a CdS shell. Especially, the ratio of the two crystalline phases in the shell significantly influences the photoluminescence enhancement. The highest emission was achieved for chemically pure CdS shells below 1 nm thickness with a dominant metastable rock salt phase fraction matching the crystal structure of the PbS core. The metastable phase fraction decreases with increasing shell thickness and increasing Exchange times. The photoluminescence intensity depicts a constant decrease with decreasing metastable rock salt phase fraction but Shows an abrupt drop for shells above 1.3 nm thickness. We relate this effect to two different transition mechanisms for changing from the metastable rock salt phase to the equilibrium zinc blende phase depending on the shell thicknes

Size dependence of the pressure-induced gamma to alpha structuraltransition in iron oxide nanocrystals

The size trend for the pressure-induced gamma-Fe2O3(maghemite) to alpha-Fe2O3 (hematite) structural phase transition in nanocrystals has been observed. The transition pressure was found to increase with decreasing nanocrystal size: 7 nm nanocrystals transformed at 272GPa, 5 nm at 343GPa and 3 nm at 372GPa. Annealing of a bulk sample of gamma-Fe2O3 was found to reduce the transition pressure from 352 to242GPa. The bulk modulus was determined to be 2626GPa for 7 nm nanocrystals of gamma-Fe2O3, which is significantly higher than for the value of 1906 GPa that we measured for bulk samples. For alpha-Fe2O3, the bulk moduli for 7 nm nanocrystals (3365) and bulk (30030) were found to be almost the same within error. The bulk modulus for the gamma phase was found to decrease with decreasing particle size between 10 and 3.2 nm particle size. Values for the ambient pressure molar volume were found within 1 percent to be: 33.0 cm3/mol for bulk gamma-Fe2O3, 32.8 cm3/mol for 7 nm diameter gamma-Fe2O3 nanocrystals, 30.7 cm3/mol for bulk alpha-Fe2O3 and 30.6 cm3/mol for alpha-Fe2O3 nanocrystals