Under ambient conditions, almost all metals are coated by an oxide. These coatings, the result of a chemical reaction, are not passive. Many of them bind, activate and modify adsorbed molecules, processes that are exploited, for example, in heterogeneous catalysis and photochemistry. Here we report an effect of general importance that governs the bonding, structure formation and dissociation of...

An important step in oxide photochemistry, the loading of electrons into shallow trap states, was studied using infrared (IR) spectroscopy on both, rutile TiO2 powders and single-crystal, r-TiO2(110) oriented samples. After UV-irradiation or n-doping by exposure to H-atoms broad IR absorption lines are observed for the powders at around 940 cm(-1). For the single crystal substrates, the IR abso...

In this work the suitability of some Tibased coatings as coating for blood-contacting implants is analyzed. Layers of pure Ti, Ti nitride, Ti oxynitrides (TiN1-xOx with x = 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75) and Ti oxides were deposited from a plasma produced by cathodic arc evaporation under addition of N2 and/or O2. The oxynitrides are crystalline with the fcc structure of TiN up to x = 0.25. For x = 0.5 ...

In this paper, rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays are fabricated by a template-free method and proposed as a promising anode for aqueous Li-ion battery. The as-prepared TiO2 nanorod arrays exhibited reversible Li-ion insertion/extraction ability in aqueous LiOH electrolyte. Moreover, galvanostatic charge/discharge test results demonstrated that the reversible capacity of TiO2 nanorods could reach about...

This work demonstrates a phenomenon that preserves the traditionally metastable anatase crystal structure of thin titania (TiO2) films along a two-dimensional oxide interface at temperatures well in excess of those that normally trigger a full polymorphic transformation to rutile in higher dimensionality crystalline powders. Whereas atomic surface mobility appears to dominate polymorph transfor...

Polystyrene (PS) opal and titania (TiO2) inverse opal films were fabricated by the self-assembly colloidal crystal template technique. Based on Bragg’s law, these sensors were used to detect the different concentrations of ethanol solution. The results indicated that TiO2 inverse opal films were advantageous over PS opal film for detecting the ethanol concentration. TiO2 inverse opal films sint...

Transformations of molecular structures formed by perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) molecules on a rutile TiO2(110) surface are studied with low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy. We demonstrate that metastable molecular assemblies transform into differently ordered structures either due to additional energy provided by thermal annealing or when the influence of int...

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been used to study the rutile TiO2 (100) surface in an oxidizing environment. By changing annealing conditions, TiO2 surfaces with different morphologies are obtained. We report a new centered (2 · 2) surface reconstruction on this surface. Our experimental data indicates that this is a meta-stable, oxygen deficient structure formed as the disordered s...

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are currently the second most produced engineered nanomaterial in the world with vast usage in consumer products leading to recurrent human exposure. Animal studies indicate significant nanoparticle accumulation in the brain while cellular toxicity studies demonstrate negative effects on neuronal cell viability and function. However, the toxicological effec...

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a key component of diverse optical and electronic applications that exploit its exceptional material properties. In particular, the use of TiO2 in its single-crystalline phase can offer substantial advantages over its amorphous and polycrystalline phases for existing and yet-to-be-developed applications. However, the implementation of single-crystal TiO2 has been hamp...