Oriented epitaxial TiO nanowires for water splitting.

Highly oriented epitaxial rutile titanium dioxide (TiO) nanowire arrays have been hydrothermally grown on polycrystalline TiO templates with their orientation dependent on the underlying TiO grain. Both the diameter and areal density of the nanowires were tuned by controlling the precursor concentration, and the template surface energy and roughness. Nanowire tip sharpness was influenced by precursor solubility and diffusivity.