Titanium sulphide nanoclusters formed within inverse micelles

High-quality, nano-sized clusters of TiS2 have been grown successfully inside inverse micellar cages and their optical properties studied. The clusters exhibit large blueshifts in the optical-absorption features with decreasing cluster size due to quantum confinement, affording control of the absorption thresholds and a demonstration of the crossover from band-like to molecule-like spectra as the size of the clusters becomes smaller than that of the exciton in the bulk.