Chemistry in Pictures: Landscape of nanospheres

Answering the growing climate crisis will require new technologies that rely on renewable energy. Titanium dioxide is common in our daily lives, appearing in paint, cosmetics, and building materials. But when titanium dioxide spheres are scaled down to around 300–500 nm, they can capture a wide range of the visible light from the sun and use it to drive chemical reactions that are important for a more sustainable world. But these properties are not found in larger particles or bulk samples of titanium dioxide. So researchers are working to image and characterize the nanospheres to better understand their properties. For the titanium dioxide particles to use light effectively, their size and shape need to be uniform. Scanning electron microscopy imaging, which is shown here, can allow us to see these extremely small particles with high resolution.

This image is one of three winners of the recent NanoInFocus image contest, sponsored by the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, on behalf of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, along with the American Chemical Society and the University of California San Diego Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Check out the other winners, Microbroccoli and Three-Dimensional Nanoarchitected Hexagonal Boron Nitride.

Submitted by: Matthew Hershey

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