High-yield TiO2 nanowire synthesis and single nanowire field-effect transistor fabrication.

We report a facile method for synthesizing single-crystal rutile TiO₂ nanowires using atmospheric-pressure, chemical vapor deposition with Ti and TiO as precursors. The synthesis is found to depend critically on the predeposition of a layer of metallic Ti on the Ni catalysts layer. The omission of this step seems previously to have impeded the efficient synthesis of titania nanowires. Single-nanowire field-effect transistors showed the TiO₂ nanowires to be n-type semiconductors with conductance activation energy of ∼58 meV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]