Growth and optical characterization of Ga₂O₃ nanobelts and nanosheets

Monoclinic Ga₂O₃ nanobelts and nanosheets are obtained by a simple chemical route involved with H₂O at 950 °C in Ar atmosphere. Electron microscopy observations reveal that the as-synthesized Ga₂O₃ nanobelts and nanosheets are structurally uniform, single crystalline, and most of them are free of defects and dislocations. The nanobelts are growing along with [001] facets, and the nanosheets are stacked up by (011) facets. The Raman scattering spectrum of Ga₂O₃ nanostructures shows a 30 cm^-1 redshift at high wave numbers in comparison with that of bulk Ga₂O₃ powder. The photoluminescence spectrum reveals that there exists a stable blue emission band centered at 460 nm, which is mainly attributed to the oxygen vacancies in the Ga₂O₃ nanostructures. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.