An inorganic route for controlled synthesis of W18O49 nanorods and nanofibers in solution.

In this work, we describe a simple inorganic route for synthesis of monodispersed W(18)O(49) nanorods with dimensional control in the quantum confinement regime. The single-crystalline W(18)O(49) nanorods can be prepared into stable colloidal solutions, or assembled into fibrous and/or paper forms by tuning process parameters. The important role of Na(2)SO(4) salt in the synthesis has been demonstrated. This inorganic route should be feasible for large-scale production of low-dimensional nanostructured W(18)O(49).