A facile growth process of highly single crystalline Ir_1-xV_xO₂ mixed metal oxide nanorods and their electrochemical properties

We introduce a facile growth process for mixed metal oxide nanorods of Ir_1-xV_xO₂ in the broad range of metal contents between iridium and vanadium via a vapor phase transport process and their electrochemical performance. The growth process of Ir_1-xV_xO₂ nanorods was performed by modulating the ratios of two precursors of VO₂ and IrO₂, the growth temperature, the position of metal oxide precursors in a furnace, and the flow rate of carrier gases. The results indicated that quasi one-dimensional nanostructures of Ir_1-xV_xO₂ can be obtained of a single crystalline nature with the tetragonal rutile crystal structure by randomly incorporating Ir⁴⁺ and V⁴⁺ metal ions into the same lattice unit of the tetragonal structure owing to similar ionic sizes. In addition, the fundamental electrochemical performances for Ir_1-xV_xO₂ nanorods grown directly on an Au microelectrode of 25 μm in diameter were carefully tested in order to explore the nonenzymatic amperometric sensing capacity of ascorbic acid as a biologically important molecule.