Synthesis and optical properties of high-purity CoO nanowires prepared by an environmentally friendly molten salt route

CoO nanowires with diameters of 50_80 nm, and lengths of up to more than 5 μm have been successfully synthesized by a simple environmentally friendly molten salt route, in which the precursor CoCO3 nanoparticles are decomposed to form high-purity CoO nanowires in NaCl flux. The structure features and morphology of the as-prepared CoO nanowires were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The chemical composition and oxidation state of the prepared nanowires were systemically studied by X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and laser Raman spectroscopy. The results indicated that the as-prepared CoO nanowires were composed of pure cubic CoO phase. The growth mechanism of the synthesized nanowires was also discussed in detail based on the experimental results.