Efficient synthesis of dendritic PbTiO3 nanorods by hydrothermal method

The PbTiO3 nanorods were synthesized by a hydrothermal method using 4.4 mol/L ammonia solution as the pH-adjusting agent. The influence of Pb/Ti molar ratio in the Pb–Ti precursors, precursor concentration, reaction temperature, and time on formation of PbTiO3 nanorods was investigated. The dendritic PbTiO3 nanorods were obtained by controlling the process parameters. The preparation of dendritic PbTiO3 nanorods mainly involved two steps: in the first step of formation of PbTiO3 nanorods, the classical nucleation and growth dominates the nanorod growth, and in the second step of formation of dendritic PbTiO3 nanorods, the oriented attachment dominates the dendritic grain growth. The PbTiO3 nanorods grew along the [001] c-axis, and the oriented attachment was along the [001] c-axis to form the dendritic PbTiO3 nanorods.