Synthesis of SnO nanocrystals with shape control via ligands interaction and limited ligand protection

SnO nanoplates, nanosheets and nanorings have been synthesized by a simple and facile approach. By changing the reaction temperature, SnO nanoplates would become to individual SnO nanosheets. Complex nanostructures disassemble to its basic unit. When reaction temperature is much higher, novel SnO nanorings by assemble of nanosheets appear. Assemble processes and disassemble processes are observed in this experiment. Ligand plays a key role in the morphology evolution of nanocrystals. The ligand interaction mechanism is proposed to explain the transition from nanoplates to nanosheets, and ligand protection mechanism is used to explain the formation of nanorings. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) are used to characterize these samples.