Precursor Approach for Gallium Oxide Nitride Phases

1 Precursor Approach for Gallium Oxide Nitride Phases 

Thermally Activated Transformation of Gallium Nitrate The complete or partial thermal decomposition of metal nitrates is commonly used for the preparation of oxides. The thermal treatment of gallium nitrate, Ga(N03)3-3c H2O, leads to formation of the pure oxide in an inert gas atmosphere [239] and to the pure nitride when the reaction is carried out in a reducing gas atmosphere [231]. In order to explore the decomposition of Ga(N03)3 x H2O as a function of temperature in a nitrogen gas atmosphere, Berbenni et al. combined thermal analysis with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, suggesting a mechanism that proceeds in three main steps, as displayed in Eqs. (1) to (3) [239]. 

At a temperature of 100 °C, a weight loss corresponding to 18% of the initial mass occurs and coincides with the reaction given in Eq. (1)  

The second slower mass loss step, that starts at a temperature of 150 °C and results in a mass decrease to 28.26% of the initial mass at 220 C, corresponds to a reaction such as that proposed in Eq. (2 )  

Berbenni et cd. proposed that the reaction in Eq. (2) is bypassed during rapid heating so that the starting material is directly decomposed into a phase mixture of Ga(OH)2(N03) and Ga(N03)0. 

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