Building crystalline Sb2S3 nanowire dandelions with multiple crystal splitting motif

Crystalline dandelion-like antimony (III) sulfide (Sb2S3) nanowires were synthesized by a PEG-assisted solvothermal process. The orthorhombic crystal structure and dandelion-like multi-branched nanowire morphology were revealed by X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) respectively. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) identified that the highly crystalline Sb2S3 nanowires grew along the [001] direction with individual wire diameter of 195 ± 52 nm. The band gap of the Sb2S3 nanowires was measured to be ca. 1.67 eV. A combination of PEG-templated assembly and crystal splitting mechanism was likely responsible for the growth of the observed nanowire dandelion structures.

► Facile synthesis of single-crystalline multi-branching Sb2S3 nanowire dandelions by solvothermal process.
► PEG as template for the structure assembly and surface stabilizer to initialize crystal splitting.
► Strong interaction between PEG and low energy Sb2S3 crystal planes promotes crystal splitting.
► Crystal splitting induced multi-branching is the structure building motif for the dandelion-like Sb2S3 nanostructures.
► Semiconducting nanowires with a direct band gap of ca. 1.67 eV.