Nanorod Arrays: Correlation of Optical Properties, Electronic Structure, and Photocatalytic Activity in Nanostructured Tungsten Oxide (Adv. Mater. Interfaces 18/2017)

Christopher S. Blackman and co-workers show tungsten oxide nano-rods at different length scales, where decreasing rod length is correlated with colour change from blue to yellow (increasing bandgap) on their cover. As described in article number 1700064, this bandgap increase is ascribed to a defect-induced strain field in the nano-rod nucleate, and surprisingly results in increased activity for photo-oxidation of an organic pollutant due to the associated (positive) change in the valence band energy.