Soft Chemistry Synthesis and Characterization of Nano p-Type Transparent Semiconducting Delafossite Oxides of Type A+B3+O2 Where A = Cu; B = Al, Ga, and Cr.

Delafossite oxides of form A(+)B(3+)O(2) where A = Cu, Ag and B = Al, Ga, In, Cr, La, Y, B, etc are attracting huge research interests in recent years due to its potential application as p-type transparent conducting oxides, thermo-electric, catalyst, photocatalyst, sensors, p-type dye sensitized solar cells, etc. The layered structure of A(+)B(3+)O(2) delafossite oxides contain natural superlattices composed of alternate layers of edge shared BO(6)octahedras and dumb-bell shaped AO(2) units. Soft chemistry synthesis routes like sol-gel and hydrothermal/solvothermal process are used in particular to synthesize delafossite nano-powders. Sol-gel synthesis has advantages with respect to obtaining the metastable materials with purity and compositional homogeneity at moderate temperatures in comparison to the high temperature ceramic route. The particle morphologies are influenced by the presence of chelating agents during the chemical transformation of the molecular precursor to the final oxide. The organic additives-assisted hydrothermal synthesis controls the morphology, uniformity and dispersability of delafossite oxide nanostructures. In this presentation, synthesis of some important copper based delafossite oxides like CuAlO2, CuGaO2 and CuCrO2 by soft chemistry routes will be discussed. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Advanced Materials and Applications (ICAMA 2016).