Orthorhombic phase formation in electrochemically grown vanadium oxide (V2O5) nanofibers

•Electrochemical deposition leads to the formation of 2D crystalline V2O5 nanofibers.•Electron diffraction was used to determine the inner structure of fibers.•The fibers grown preferentially along the low-index (100) crystallographic plane.•The fibers grow along specific orientations in order to minimize the surface energy.•The 2D structure of fibers is an important feature for technological applications.

The inner structure of V2O5 nanofibers synthesized by electrochemical deposition has been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The experimental results demonstrate that the fibers are formed by 2D orthorhombic layers of V2O5. The layers are formed along the plane ab stacked in the crystallographic direction c. Additionally the diffraction results indicate that the fibers grow preferentially along the (100) crystallographic plane with surface dominated by the plane (001). The formation of fibers is discussed in terms of the preferential growth along specific orientations in order to minimize the surface energy of the nanostructures.