Controlled hydrothermal synthesis and growth mechanism of various nanostructured films of copper and silver tellurides.

Various nanostructured films of copper and silver tellurides were hydrothermally grown on the corresponding metal substrates through reactions between metal foils and tellurium powder in different media. Interesting morphologies including nanowires, nanorods, nanobelts, nanosheets, and hierarchical dendrites were obtained. The nanostructured films were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and high-resolution TEM (HRTEM). A growth mechanism was proposed based on the characterization results. This study provides a low-temperature, solution-phase approach to grow low-dimensional, nanostructured metal tellurides with controllable morphologies.