Growth of Titanium Dioxide Nanorods in 3D-Confined Spaces

Three-dimensional (3D) nanowire (NW) networks are promising architectures for effectively translating the extraordinary properties of one-dimensional objects into a 3D space. However, to uniformly grow NWs. in 4 3D confined space is a serious challenge due to the coupling. between crystal growth and precursor concentration that is often dictated by the mass flow characteristic of vapor or liquid phase reactants within the high-aspect ratio submicrometer channels in current strategies. We report a pulsed chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process that successfully addressed this is:sue and grew TiO2 nanorods uniformly covering the entire inner surface of highly confined nanochannels. We propose a mechanism for the anisotropic growth of anatase TiO2 based on the,surface-reaction-limited CVD process. This strategy would lead to the realization of NW based 3D nanoarchitectures from Various functional materials for the applications of sensors, solar cells, catalysts, energy storage systems, and so forth.