| Abstract: | Titanium dioxide nanocrystals were prepared by the wet chemical method and characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman scattering (RS) and photoluminescence techniques. The XRD pattern shows the formation of single phase anatase structure of average sizes ～7 nm (sample A) and ～15 nm (sample B) for two samples. Additionally, TEM and RS were used to confirm the anatase crystal structure for both samples. The PL spectra show that the intensity of the sample A is more than that of sample B, which has been attributed to defect(s) and particle size variation. A modified phonon confinement model incorporating particle size distribution function and averaged dispersion curves for two most dispersive phonon branch (Γ‐X direction) have been used to interpret the size effect in Raman spectra. The obtained Raman peak shift and full width at half‐maximum agree well with the experimental data. Our observations suggest that the phonon confinement effects are responsible for a significant shift and broadening for the Raman peaks. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
