Amorphous titanate nanospheres fabricated using a contactless phase change process

Abstract

Nanometre-sized spherical glasses without conventional network-forming oxides were fabricated for the first time using a novel contactless phase change process. The as-fabricated titanate nanomaterials possess perfect spherical shape and superior optical properties such as high refractive index and wide-banded transmittance from 250 nm to 11 μm. We believe that these unique nanospheres may find significant applications such as antireflective coatings for photovoltaic devices, and the synthesis approach can be extended to a wide range of metastable nanomaterials.