Unconventional grain growth suppression in oxygen-rich metal oxide nanoribbons

Nanograined metal oxides are requisite for diverse applications that use large surface area, such as gas sensors and catalysts. However, nanoscale grains are thermodynamically unstable and tend to coarsen at elevated temperatures. Here, we report effective grain growth suppression in metal oxide nanoribbons annealed at high temperature (900°C) by tuning the metal-to-oxygen ratio and confining the nanoribbons. Despite the high annealing temperatures, the average grain size was maintained at ~6 nm, which also retained their structural integrity. We observe that excess oxygen in amorphous tin oxide nanoribbons prevents merging of small grains during crystallization, leading to suppressed grain growth. As an exemplary application, we demonstrate a gas sensor using grain growth–suppressed tin oxide nanoribbons, which exhibited both high sensitivity and unusual long-term operation stability. Our findings provide a previously unknown pathway to simultaneously achieve high performance and excellent thermal stability in nanograined metal oxide nanostructures.