Secondary growth of microporous vanadosilicate AM-6 films

Oriented vanadosilicate AM-6 thin films with an average thickness of 1-2 mu m were prepared on the ITO coated glass substrates using secondary growth method with a partial a(b)-out-of-plane preferred crystal orientation for the first time. In secondary growth method, titanosilicate ETS-10 crystals were deposited on the substrate from a colloidal suspension to form seed layers. Then, the hydrothermal growth of the seed crystals was conducted to form AM-6 films. It was observed that the AM-6 films formed possess similar 1-D VO3 (2-) quantum wires as also observed in powder AM-6 crystals. Afterward, the effect of reaction temperature and amount of water in the secondary growth gel on crystal morphology and a(b)-out-of-plane crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) were investigated to gain a better understanding of the secondary growth mechanism of vanadosilicate AM-6 films. The results suggested that the increased amount of water leads to increased CPO in the AM-6 films, whereas an increase in reaction temperature from 503 to 528 K leads to more c-oriented AM-6 films with a decreased CPO value. Furthermore, an increase in the reaction temperature led to a decrease in the reaction time, resulting in the formation of quartz impurity. Accordingly, well intergrown a(b)-out-of-plane oriented vanadosilicate films were grown for the first time using ETS-10 seed crystals and it is believed that this work provides an effective pathway for controlling the synthesis of AM-6 films expanding the possible range of applications of these materials possessing 1-D quantum wires.