NbO Disintegration by Surfactant-Assisted High-Energy Ball Milling

Macrocrystalline niobium monoxide powder has been disintegrated to an average nanoparticle size of 20 ± 10 nm by high-energy milling in a planetary ball mill. X-ray diffraction data showed that, after milling, the particles retained an ordered cubic crystal structure with space group Pm3¯m, containing structural vacancies in both the metallic (25 at %) and nonmetallic (25 at %) sublattices. Analysis of diffraction line broadening as a function of the magnitude of the scattering vector indicated lattice strain anisotropy in the crystallographic directions [100], [110], and [111]. According to the diffraction line broadening data, the size of the nanoparticles in the [100] direction was smaller than those in the [110] and [111] directions. The use of surfactants enabled us to obtain a stable suspension of niobium monoxide nanoparticles in water.