Tunable morphologies of indium tin oxide nanostructures using nanocellulose templates

Abstract

Metal oxide nanostructures have emerged as an important family of materials for various device applications. The performance is highly dependent on the morphology of the metal oxide nanostructures. Here we report a completely green approach to prepare indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticles using only water and cellulose nanofibril (CNF) in addition to the ITO precursor. Surface hydroxyl groups of the CNFs allow for efficient conjugation of ITO precursors (e.g., metal ions) in aqueous solution. The resulting CNF film allows for controllable spatial arrangement of metal oxide precursors, which results in tunable particle morphology (e.g., nanowires, nanospheres, and octahedral nanoparticles). These ITO nanoparticles can also form conductive and transparent ITO films. This work opens a new perspective on developing metal oxide nanostructures.