Preparation of Lithium Niobate Nanoparticles by High Energy Ball Milling and their Characterization

We present investigations on the preparation of lithium niobate, LiNbO3 nanoparticles using high energy ball-milling. Stoichiometric composition of LiNbO3 powder was prepared by solid-state reaction method and used for ball-milling. Various milling parameter were optimized to get required particle sizes. Synthesized nanoparticles were characterized for their structure and particle sizes using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) techniques. The UV-Visible transmission shows the blue shift in cutoff, which indicate nearly stoichiometric composition of the prepared material. It has been observed that the sizes of particles decreases with increasing milling speed and time. Observed particle sizes were found in the range ~30-60 nm.