Synthesis of chiral mesostructured titanium dioxide films.

Chiral mesostructured TiO2 films (CMTFs) were synthesized by a hydrothermal method using l/d-mannitol as the symmetry-breaking agent and titanium foil as both the substrate and inorganic precursor. Five levels of hierarchical chirality exist in the CMTFs, exhibiting optical activity (OA) at ∼350 nm attributed to the electronic transitions in a dissymmetric electric field.