Growth and microstructural characterization of single crystalline Nb3Te4 nanowires

Novel Nb3Te4 nanowires have been successfully synthesized through the direct reaction and annealing of the elemental powders, by means of a vapor transport mechanism. This is the first instance of the production of group 5 transition metal telluride nanowires. Synthesis involved the initial formation of NbTe2 crystallites which were subsequently annealed to generate crystalline Nb3Te4 nanowires. Characterization using powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed the wires to be single crystalline, with their longitudinal axes coincident with the crystallographic c-direction of Nb3Te4. The nanowires ranged in dimension from 50 nm to similar to 1 mu m in diameter and from 1 to 30 mu m in length.