Hematite (α-Fe2O3) crystals with uniform size and structure are synthesized through very facile one-pot hydrothermal methods without any additive. The as-synthesized sub-micrometer-sized α-Fe2O3 crystals with small surface areas perform superb visible light photodegradation activities, even much better than most other α-Fe2O3 nanostructures with large surface areas. Profound mechanism analyses ...

The use of tantalum as a highly effective dopant for hematite photoelectrochemistry (PEC) has shown contradictory results in previous reports. We show here through screening of different compositions by scanning electrochemical microscopy that Ta doping significantly improves the PEC performance of dropcast films on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO). In studies with larger electrodes, a 2% Ta-dope...

The adsorption of submonolayer V on an idealized model hematite (0001) surface and subsequent oxidation under atomic O adsorption are studied by density functional theory. The preferred adsorption sites, adsorption energy and configuration changes due to V and O adsorption are investigated. It is found that in most cases V forms threefold bonds with surface O atoms, inducing a large geometry ch...

Various compositions of barium-doped hematite between pure hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) and pure barium hexaferrite (BaFe12O19) were synthesized by solid state reaction. The XRD analyses confirmed the progressive evolution of the two crystalline phases. Tests as humidity sensors show that the electrical resistance of samples containing high proportions of hexaferrite phase is strongly influenced. Electro...

Novel hematite@graphene composites have been successfully synthesized by a one-pot surfactant governed approach under mild wet-chemical conditions. A series of characterizations including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectrum, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicated that the hematite nanoparticles with relatively uniform size were encapsulated b...

We synthesized α-Fe₂O₃ (hematite) thin films with two different nanoscopic morphologies through self-assembly between a Fe-precursor and a Pluronic tri-block copolymer (F127) followed by aging and calcination. Relative humidity (RH) during the aging step of the spin-coated films was found to be critical in determining the morphologies. A network structure of nanowires ∼6 nm in diameter formed w...