High-fraction brookite films from amorphous precursors.

Structure-specific synthesis processes are of key importance to the growth of polymorphic functional compounds such as TiO, where material properties strongly depend on structure as well as chemistry. The robust growth of the brookite polymorph of TiO, a promising photocatalyst, has been difficult in both powder and thin-film forms due to the disparity of reported synthesis techniques, their highly specific nature, and lack of mechanistic understanding. In this work, we report the growth of high-fraction (~95%) brookite thin films prepared by annealing amorphous titania precursor films deposited by pulsed laser deposition.