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 ≈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.