Solvothermal synthesis, characterization and formation mechanism of single-crystalline SrTiO3 dense spheres with monoethanolamine as reaction medium solvent

Abstract

Single-crystal strontium titanate (SrTiO₃) dense spheres have been synthesized via a solvothermal reaction route with monoethanolamine as reaction medium solvent. The as-synthesized SrTiO₃ products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and selected area electron diffraction, respectively. The results demonstrated that the single-crystal SrTiO₃ dense spheres are self-assembled by primary nanocrystallites. Based on the experimental results, the possible formation mechanism of the SrTiO₃ spheres has been proposed. Moreover, by changing the solvent with diethanolamine and triethanolamine instead of monoethanolamine, the average diameter of the SrTiO₃ dense spheres can be tuned from 100–150 nm to 50–70 nm.