Facile fabrication of flower like self-assembled mesoporous hierarchical microarchitectures of In(OH)3 and In2O3: In(OH)3 micro flowers with electron beam sensitive thin petals

A template and capping-reagent free facile fabrication method for mesoporous hierarchical microarchitectures of flower-like In(OH)3 particles under benign hydrothermal conditions is reported. Calcination of In(OH)3 to In2O3 with the retention of morphology is also described. Both In(OH)3 and In2O3 microstructures were analyzed with SEM, EDX, TEM and powder X-ray diffraction. The crystal sizes for In(OH)3 and In2O3 were calculated using the Scherrer equation. In In(OH)3 the thin flakes at the periphery of micro flowers were electron beam sensitive. The mechanism of self-assembly process was analyzed as well.