High temperature strategy for oxide nanoparticle synthesis.

Compared with noble metals and quantum dots, dielectric complex oxide nanoparticles are significantly less popular due to their high crystallization temperature, making difficult their synthesis in the 10-100 nm range for which surface effects are reduced. We report here an original process permitting thermal annealing of complex oxide nanoparticles at high temperature without aggregation and growth. Thus, after thermal treatment, these annealed particles can be dispersed in water, leading to concentrated aqueous colloidal dispersions containing isolated highly crystalline particles. This contrasts with usual colloidal techniques for which the production of particles in the 10-100 nm range generally leads to poorly crystallized particles, especially for multicomponent oxides. From two examples, we show some possibilities offered by this type of process. This concerns the synthesis of lanthanide-doped oxide nanoparticles exhibiting a bulk behavior for their luminescence properties and the control of the composition in nitrogen-doped titanium oxide particles without sintering and size change.