Synthesis and characterization of α-MoO3 microspheres packed with nanoflakes

In this paper, we report the fabrication of three-dimensional molybdenum oxide (alpha-MoO3) microspheres (MSs) packed with nanoflakes by facile and eco-friendly physical vapour deposition processes. Synthesis processes include sequences of plasma-assisted sublimation and thermal evaporation routes on a nickel-coated glass substrate in three individual stages. It is observed that nanostructured films deposited in the first and second stages function as seed layers for the growth of MoO3 MSs. The structural study divulged that the MoO3 MSs are polycrystalline in nature with pure orthorhombic phase. The morphological study endorses the uniform growth of MSs on a large area scale having diameters in the range of 0.7-2 mu m with the finely packed single crystalline nanoflakes with mean thicknesses of nearly 60 nm. These single crystalline flakes are not individual but in the form of randomly distributed bunches embedded on the surface of MSs. Vibrational study of molybdenum and oxygen atoms in the MSs is carried out by Raman and Fourier transform infrared analysis, which further assured the existence of a pure orthorhombic crystal phase of MoO3 MSs and also justified the x-ray diffractogram findings. The MoO3 MSs show intense photoluminescence emission at room temperature with the five prominent peaks located at 424, 457, 486, 521 and 536 nm in accordance with the improvement in the degree of crystallinity. The possible growth strategy of alpha-MoO3 MSs packed with nanoflakes is proposed in this paper briefly.