From quaternary to senary high entropy antimonide nanoparticles by a facile and scalable thermal treatment method

Abstract

Transition metal antimonides form a class of intermetallic compounds, which has drawn considerable attention due to their potential applications in various fields. However, the formation of nanostructures containing multiple transition metal elements has been a challenge. Here, a new class of multicomponent antimonide nanoparticles with chemical composition ranging from quaternary to senary were synthesized via a simple, reproducible, and scalable thermal treatment method. This method allows uniform elemental distributions in a single nanoparticle, demonstrating the ability to obtain medium- and high-entropy antimonide nanostructures. The mechanism of formation was proposed and the characteristics of obtained nanoparticles were investigated by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Under the achieved optimal synthesis conditions, the formation of a single-phase with a hexagonal structure (P63/mmc) was observed for the quaternary and quinary samples, whereas in the case of the senary samples, a trace of minor impurity can be observed.