Large-scale Synthesis of Aligned MoO3 Nanobelt Arrays on Silicon Substrates for Nanoenergetics-on-a-chip

Aligned MoO3 nanobelts and tree-like arrays have been synthesized onto silicon substrates by an ordinary gas cooker. The synthesis method is simple, rapid, low-cost, safe, and also suitable for large-scale fabrication. A possible growth mechanism of the nanobelts is presented based on the experimental observations. Via integrating nano-Al with the MoO3 nanobelt arrays, metastable intermolecular composites (MICs) based on Al/MoO3 nanobelt arrays are achieved. The Al/MoO3 MIC arrays have high energy density and can combust continuously by themselves at small dimensions and low density, which makes the MIC arrays synthesized on the silicon substrate, have promising applications in nanoenergetics- on-a-chip based functional devices at the micro and nanoscale.