Molecular level synthesis of binary oxides: nanocrystalline powders of BaTiO3, ZnAl2O4 and GdFeO3

Chemical routes are becoming increasingly popular for the synthesis of nanomaterials because they allow initiation of the growth of the target nanomaterial at rather low temperatures when compared to conventional material synthesis procedures that require extensive heat-treatments and repeated grinding steps for the nucleus formation. The use of well-defined inorganic clusters, containing the phase-forming elements in a discrete molecular assembly, as single-source precursors further substantiates the potential of soft chemistry routes by enabling the construction or molecular templating of the required ceramic material at the atomic scale.