Hydrothermal synthesis of single-crystalline La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 nanowires at low temperature

Abstract

Single-crystalline La_0.5Ca_0.5MnO₃ nanowires have been successfully prepared by a hydrothermal method at low temperature. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) results show that the La_0.5Ca_0.5MnO₃ nanowires have an orthorhombic perovskite structure without any other impurity phase. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images demonstrate that the as-synthesized samples are made up of a large quantity of nanowires with lengths ranging from several to several tens of micrometers and uniform diameter (∼80 nm). High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images reveal that the nanowires with very clean surfaces grow along [100]. The result of magnetic measurements indicates that the nanowires have an enhanced T_c due to the shrinkage of the unit cell volume.