Crystallization of amorphous colloids: an effective approach for the rapid and large-scale preparation of antimony sulfide dendrites

Without the assistance of any templates and organic additives, orthorhombic antimony sulfide (Sb2S3) dendrites were obtained rapidly (3 h) through the crystallization of amorphous colloidal microspheres. The top view of dendrites reveals that their side branches are tetragonal prisms with a smooth face and nearly uniform breadth. The investigations on the growth mechanism demonstrated that the intermediate steps in the formation of dendrites are the rods and the structures with tip splitting. The kinetics of crystal growth, the anisotropic crystal structure and H+ ions in the solution are believed to be responsible for the tip splitting. The structures with tip splitting subsequently grew and developed into dendrites eventually. A prolonged crystallization time (10 h) was found to be unfavorable to the further increase of dendrite size but led to its fragmentation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.