Atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition synthesis of sulfides, oxides, silicides and metal nanowires with metal chloride precursors

This account briefly summarizes our research on the synthesis of nanocrystals of a host of materials from metal chloride precursors via atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition (APCVD). Successful synthesis of nanocrystals of various sulfides, oxides, silicides, and metals, demonstrates metal chlorides as useful precursors for nanoscience and nanotechnology. Oxide-assisted growth (OAG) is found to dominate the formation of a lot of metal sulfide nanowire/nanosheets. Our hypotheses of geometrically kinetic competition for the interaction between the silica sheath and the inner core materials (hexagonal Fe₇S₈ and face-centred cubic Cu _7.2S₄) have fairly well explained the phenomena of silica vapour pressure-dependent growth of the sulfide crystals. But experimental results for some sulfides call for ab initio analysis to determine its effective region associated with torsions.