Chiral and Luminescent TiO2 Nanoparticles

In this work, new chiral and luminescent TiO2 nanomaterials are prepared by a single step nonaqueous synthesis. Using circular dichroism spectroscopy it is shown that TiO2 nanoparticles are optically active with almost identical mirror images of one another in the band-edge region of titanium dioxide. Investigations of the photoluminescence properties reveal a broad shallow trap state emission centered at 440 nm, with a photoluminescence quantum yield of approximate to 3.5%, which is among the highest reported for TiO2. Electron microscopy reveals the TiO2 nanostructures to be dendritic aggregates measuring 30-50 nm in size composed of smaller nanorods of 3-4 nm in diameter.