Preparation and characterization of rutile-TiO₂ nanorods

The controlled growth of densely assembled single-phase rutile-TiO₂ nanorods was demonstrated by a heating-sol-gel template process with about -300 nm in diameter and several micrometers in length. Transmission electron microscopic observation reveals these rutile-TiO₂ nanorods are the aggregates of many nanocrystallites growing preferentially to the [110] zone axis direction with about 10-30 nm in diameter. The calculation and comparison of d-spacing values with those of bulk values suggest the crystal structure of nanorods close to bulk materials. Selected area electron diffraction and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements confirm that the obtained nanorods are rutile-TiO₂ nanorods with good compositional uniformity and consist of distinct shape of nanocrystallites with 10-30 nm diameter.