Metal selenobenzoate complexes: Novel single source precursors for the synthesis of metal selenide semiconductor nanomaterials

Nanomaterials synthesis using single source precursors is a fascinating development in material science. The shape and size dependent properties offer countless opportunities for interesting discoveries, but also poses challenges to the scientific community to control the shape and size of these materials. Selenocarboxylate complexes are difficult to synthesize, due to the instability of selenocarboxylic acids. In this study, we have developed an efficient one-pot synthesis of the selenobenzoate ligand and its three new metal complexes, tris(selenobenzoato)antimony(III), tris(selenobenzoato)bismuth(III) and bis(selenobenzoato)dibutyltin(IV). The complexes were used as single source precursors to synthesize Sb ₂ Se ₃ nanorods, Bi ₂ Se ₃ and SnSe nanosheets by colloidal thermolysis using the hot injection method. The as-synthesized nanomaterials were characterized by p-XRD, TEM, SAED and HRTEM techniques. The complexes were synthesized by a facile method with high yields and are stable at room temperature for period of several months, We believe that the selenobenzoate complexes with other metals can also be synthesized by using our method and those complexes can be useful precursors for metal selenide thin films or nanoparticles.