Development of Quasi-Two-Dimensional Nb2O5 for Functional Electrodes of Advanced Electrochemical Systems

In recent times there has been a growing interest in the development of quasi-two-dimensional niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5) as a semiconductor for the potential electronic applications such as capacitors, filtration, dye-sensitised solar cells and gas sensing platforms. Therefore once the purpose is established, Nb2O5 can be prepared in a number of nanoand sub-micron-structural morphologies that include rods, wires, belts and tubes. In this study films of Nb2O5 were prepared on gold plated silicon substrate using spin-coating technique and subsequently by mechanical exfoliation. The reason this method was employed was to achieve layers of less than 15nm in thickness. The sintering temperature of the specimen was 800C. The morphology and structural characteristics of the films were analyzed by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Raman Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Keywords—Mechanical exfoliation, niobium pentoxide, quazitwo-dimensional, semiconductor, sol-gel, spin-coating, two dimensional semiconductors.