Moisture repelling perovskite nanowires for higher stability in energy applications

Perovskite nanowires are known to be strongly interacting with the moisture. In this work, we demonstrate that strontium manganate (SrMnO3) nanowire, an oxide perovskite, which is initially superhydrophilic, becomes a water repellent upon suitable modification by the ion beam. Highly crystalline SrMnO3 nanowires have been synthesized hydrothermally with an average diameter of about 60 nm and possess 4H crystal structure. The nanowires have been systematically irradiated with nitrogen ions at different energies and in a specific range of ion fluence. For low energy (5 keV), and at a relatively high threshold ion fluence, the nanowire surface starts to become hydrophobic, and the hydrophobicity increases with the ion fluence. However, at higher energies (50–100 keV), the sample surface becomes superhydrophobic at relatively low fluence, and beyond this point, the contact angle is almost independent of the ion fluence. Using state-of-the-art TRI3DYN computer-based simulation, and by employing density functional theory based calculations, we have shown that at low ion energy, the defects turn out to be a dominating factor for the samples to become hydrophobic. At higher ion energies, nanowelding and porous structure lead the way to become superhydrophobic.