Novel Nanocrystal Heterostructures: Crystallographic-Oriented Growth of SnO2 Nanorods onto α-Fe2O3 Nanohexahedron

The novel SnO 2 /α-Fe 2 O 3 semiconductor nanocrystal heterostructures (SNCHs) were fabricated by virtue of the crystallographic-oriented growth of the SnO 2 nanorods onto the α-Fe 2 O 3 nanohexahedrons via a reverse microemulsion route. The variation of the exposure surfaces of the α-Fe 2 O 3 precursor crystals was found to result in the change of the preferential crystallographic orientation of the SnO 2 nanorods. The investigations on the structural characteristics and the morphological evolution of the SnO 2 /α-Fe 2 O 3 SNCHs suggested that the heteronucleation and homonucleation of SnO 2 occurred simultaneously at the early stage of the reaction, and the SnO 2 /α-Fe 2 O 3 SNCHs were then well-formed by a mechanism of Ostwald ripening of the heteronucleated SnO 2 particles. The “lattice dislocations” generated at the SnO 2 /α-Fe 2 O 3 interfaces took the role to relieve the interfacial strain and thus facilitated the formation of the definite interfaces.