Chemically synthesized nitrogen-doped metal oxide nanoparticles

This review focuses on the synthesis, physical properties, as well as applications of nitrogen-doped metal oxide nanoparticles, with special emphasis on titania-based nanomaterials. Due to the wide-spread impact of this research field we are unable to discuss all the excellent work conducted on this topic, and as such we have narrowed our review on chemically synthesized nanoparticles, in order to avoid unnecessary overlap with other excellent reviews on this topic. The potential applications of N-doped nanomaterials continuously increase and it is very likely that they will find application in the areas of energy conversion and environmental clean-up. On the other hand, the basic science of the doping and the enhanced photoactivity of these materials is still not fully understood and further studies on the chemical physics of these nanomaterials by our group are presented. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.