Self-assembly of disk-like multiring ZnO-SnO2 colloidal nanoparticles

ZnO-SnO(2) colloidal nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized by using the composite of ZnCl(2) and Sn(OC(4)H(9))(4) as inorganic precursor and dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA) as an organic template. The assembled nanostructures of ZnO-SnO(2) products have been carefully investigated by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It is found that ZnO-SnO(2) colloidal nanoparticles take a disk-like multiring nanostructure. This interesting structure is predominantly determined by the tenacity for ZnO-SnO(2) mixtures to stabilize lamellae. A mechanism based on electrostatic interactions between the precursor and template has been proposed to illustrate the resulting nanoparticle structure.