Abstract
Nanometre-sized inorganic dots, wires and belts have a wide range of electrical and optical properties, and variable mechanical stability and phase-transition mechanisms that show a sensitive dependency on size, shape and structure. The optical properties of the semiconductor ZnS in wurtzite structures are considerably enhanced, but the lack of structural stability limits technological applications. Here, we demonstrate that morphology-tuned wurtzite ZnS nanobelts show a particular low-energy surface structure dominated by the +/-[210] surface facets. Experiments and calculations show that the morphology of ZnS nanobelts leads to a very high mechanical stability to approximately 6.8 GPa, and also results in an explosive mechanism for the wurtzite-to-sphalerite phase transformation together with in situ fracture of the nanobelts. ZnS wurtzite nanobelts provide a model that is useful not only for understanding the morphology-tuned stability and transformation mechanism, but also for improving synthesis of metastable nanobelts with quantum effects for electronic and optical devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 922-927 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Nature Materials |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2005 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
We appreciate financial support from the Director’s Funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory. We also acknowledge gratefully the staff at CHESS, Wilson Laboratory of Cornell University for assistance with experimental matters. X.D.W. and Z.L.W. are grateful for support from NSF. Special appreciation goes to the Carnegie/DOE Alliance Center (CDAC) for significant support. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Z.W.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| National Science Foundation | |
| Los Alamos National Laboratory |