Laser-induced synthesis of BaMoO4 nanocolloidal suspension and its optical properties

Pulsed laser ablation in a liquid phase was successfully employed to synthesize a barium molybdate (BaMoO4) nanocolloidal suspension. The nanocolloidal suspension was composed of well-dispersed and horizontally assembled BaMoO4 aggregates. The BaMoO4 aggregates showed predominantly elliptically shaped nanorods with sizes between 100 and 200 nm. The preferential elliptical growth was rationalized from the viewpoint of the intrinsic structure of BaMoO4. The optical properties of the prepared BaMoO4 colloidal nanoparticles were investigated using Raman spectroscopy, UV–vis spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) spectrophotometry. The optical band gap was estimated by Tauc and Menth’s law. The PL emission feature was decomposed into several individual Gaussian components, which could be interpreted by a Jahn–Teller splitting effect on the [MoO4]2- tetrahedron of the BaMoO4 colloidal nanoparticles.