Facile titania nanocoating using single droplet assembly of 2D nanosheets

Abstract

Single droplet assembly is a new thin-film technology using drop casting of two-dimensional (2D) materials: controlled convection by a pipette and a hotplate causes a uniform deposition, suggesting new possibility of 2D nanosheet assembly. We extended this new assembly technique to titania nanocoating by including detailed investigations on fabrication procedure and characteristics as coating applications. The layer-by-layer approach using single droplet assembly is effective for the fabrication of atomically uniform and highly dense nanofilms. As a consequence of the effective tiling by controlled convection, the films appeared flat on the atomic scale and uniform over a large area. We also address characteristics of single droplet assembly in comparison with other deposition methods.