| The
discovery of the atomic structure of technological materials
like vanadium pentoxide nanotubes may support nanoscale
industrial applications.
Valeri
Petkov, a faculty member in Central Michigan University’s
physics department and lead researcher in an experiment
at Argonne and Brookhaven National Laboratories, used
a nontraditional experimental technique called Pair
Distribution Function analysis to determine the three-dimensional
structure of vanadium oxide nanotubes. An accurate
knowledge of its three-dimensional structure is needed
to better understand and control the material’s useful
properties.
“Once
a good structural model is found, its parameters may
be refined and then used to explain, predict and possibly
improve the structure-sensitive properties of the
nanomaterial,” said Petkov. “This is a major advantage
over using a statistical description of the structure
as it is done with completely disordered materials
like glasses.”
The
work, supported by a four-year, $200,000 National
Science Foundation Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research
Team grant, indicates that the PDF technique may become
a tool for structure determination in the emerging
field of nanoscience and technology.
Crystalline
vanadium pentoxide is a key industrial material used
in optical switches, chemical sensors, catalysts and
solid-state batteries. The material possesses an outstanding
structural versatility and can be manufactured into
nanotubes that have many useful properties and potential
applications, said Petkov.
The
researchers conducted synchrotron radiation diffraction
experiments at the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne
National Laboratory and applied the nontraditional
PDF technique. The nanotubes exhibited a well-defined
nanometer scale structure, and the researchers were
able to build a three-dimensional model.
The
team’s study, “Structure Beyond Bragg: Study of V2O5
Nanotubes,” was published in the Feb. 25 Physical
Review journal of The American Physical Society. The
management of the APS sector, where the experiment
was conducted, has selected the study as one of the
outstanding recent results obtained at that sector.
MEDIA
CONTACT: Pat Housley, (989) 774-3197
CMU
CONTACT: Valeri Petkov, (989) 774-3395 or e-mail petkov@phy.cmich.edu
WEB
SITE: http://www.phy.cmich.edu/people/petkov
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