Self-assembly of 3D hierarchical clew-like Sm2O3 microspheres

•Novel hierarchical clew-like Sm2O3 microspheres were successfully synthesized.•Time-dependent experiments on clew-like microspheres were investigated.•A probable formation and evolution mechanism was proposed.

Novel clew-like hierarchical Sm2O3 microspheres were successfully synthesized by calcination of the corresponding hydrothermally prepared precursors. The structures and morphology were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results show that the as-obtained products were assembled by large amounts of nanorods and possess an average diameter of about 3 µm. The time-dependent experiments were conducted to investigate the formation and evolution process in typical procedure. Results suggest the formation of such clew-like Sm2O3 architecture involves an obvious nucleation-dissolution-recrystallization-assembly mechanism. Moreover, the strong absorption property of the deep ultraviolet light suggests its promising application in the special optical instruments in the future.