Preparation and characterization of nanostructured titania thick films

The extraordinary modification of bulk-material properties provided by nanosized materials, due to magnification of surface effects, has encouraged the scientific community to seek novel methodologies of synthesis. Among these, particular emphasis has been given to the techniques that envisage large-scale production and could improve the present-day technology. Nanostructured titania films possess an immense range of applications, e.g. in the field of optics, electrical insulation, photovoltaic solar cells, electrochromic displays, antibacterial coatings, photocatalytic reactors, high-performance anodes in ion batteries, and for gas sensing. Indeed, the production of nanostructured titania thin films has been recently carried out by several methods. It was also shown that some applications greatly benefited from a nanostructured phase for TiO2. [11]