Growth of MoO3 nanostructured thin films as a function of O2-partial pressure

In this report, we synthesized molybdenum trioxide (α-MoO3) nanostructured thin films (NSTs) with nanoflakes (NFs) on the Ni-coated glass substrates employing plasma assisted sublimation process (PASP) as a function of oxygen partial pressure (PO2). The effect of oxygen partial pressure on structural, morphological, and vibrational properties have been investigated systematically. The structural analysis divulged that all films deposited at different PO2 have pure orthorhombic phase, no impurity phase is detected under the limit of resolution. The morphological studies of samples is carried out by SEM, revealed that features as well as alignment of MoO3 NSTs can be monitored by PO2 and the sample having best features is obtained at 7.5×10−2 Torr. In addition, the more insight information is accomplished by TEM/HRTEM on the best featured sample, which confirmed the single crystalline nature of nanoflakes. The vibrational study of all samples are performed by FTIR, and strongly supports the XRD observations...