One-dimensional growth of MoOx-based organic–inorganic hybrid nanowires with tunable photochromic properties

The diverse structures of molybdate anions significantly provide new opportunities to design various nanostructures of MoOx-based organic–inorganic hybrids with prominent catalytic, electrochemical and photo/electrochromic properties. In this paper, the one-dimensional (1D) growth originating from anisotropic molybdate anions is successfully introduced to prepare a series of hybrid nanowires of Mo3O10(C6H8N)2·2H2O (anilinium trimolybdate), Mo3O10(C2H10N2) (ethylenediamine trimolybdate) and Mo3O10(C5H6N)2·H2O (pyridium trimolybdate). Taking Mo3O10(C6H8N)2·2H2O for example, the 1D growth is proved to be associated with the chain-like structure of Mo3O102− anions by both experiments and quantum chemical calculations. Meanwhile, the synthesis parameters, e.g., reacting time, pH conditions and feeding ratio, show obvious influences on product morphologies based on different molybdate anions, further validating the growth mechanism. More importantly, the as-obtained MoOx/amine nanostructures remarkably exhibit tunable photochromic properties depending on their 1D structures and hybrid composites, which presents the potential to design well-tailored functional optical nanodevices.