Solvothermal synthesis, characterization and formation mechanism of single-crystalline SrTiO sub(3) dense spheres with monoethanolamine as reaction medium solvent

Single-crystal strontium titanate (SrTiO sub(3)) dense spheres have been synthesized viaa solvothermal reaction route with monoethanolamine as reaction medium solvent. The as-synthesized SrTiO sub(3) products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and selected area electron diffraction, respectively. The results demonstrated that the single-crystal SrTiO sub(3) dense spheres are self-assembled by primary nanocrystallites. Based on the experimental results, the possible formation mechanism of the SrTiO sub(3) spheres has been proposed. Moreover, by changing the solvent with diethanolamine and triethanolamine instead of monoethanolamine, the average diameter of the SrTiO sub(3) dense spheres can be tuned from 100-150 nm to 50-70 nm.