HYDROTHERMAL FABRICATION OF CORE-SHELL STRUCTURED Cu2O MICROSPHERES VIA AN INTERMEDIATE-TEMPLATE ROUTE

Homogenous core-shell structured Cu2O microspheres have been successfully fabricated by a reductive transformation of in situ formed intermediate templates in an aqueous solution.Themorphologicalevolutionfortheseuniquehollowstructureswasmonitored via SEM observations and a detailed formation process has been proposed: (i) formation of intermediate microspheres; (ii) reductive conversion of this template to Cu2O; (iii) inside-out Ostwald ripening of Cu2O microspheres. In this ethanol-water system, ethanol serves as reductant in the reductive conversion process and the reaction temperature has an important effect on the formation of unique core-shell architectures. This effective solution-based synthetic route may shed some light on the design and fabrication of homogenous core-shell micro/nanostructures of other promising functional materials.