Morphology and property tuning of Te nanostructures in a hydrothermal growth

Te nanoplates, nanowires, and nanospheres were successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method with glucose as a surfactant agent. By simply changing the reaction time, the morphology of Te nanostructures can be changed from nanoplates, to nanowires, and ultimately to nanospheres. The samples were studied by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, x-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and photoluminescence measurements. It is found that the reaction time plays an important role in morphology formation and optical properties of Te nanostructures. A possible growth mechanism involving a self-assembly process and Wulff facets theorem is proposed to explain the formation of Te nanoplates, nanowires, and nanospheres. This study presents a simple way to control the morphology of Te nanostructures and their optical properties.