Syntheses and Properties of Micro/Nanostructured Crystallites with High-Energy Surfaces

Recently, special attention has been paid to the syntheses of micro/nanostructured crystallites with high‐energy crystal facets, because high‐energy crystal surfaces usually exhibit fascinating surface‐enhanced properties and have promising applications in catalysis, photoelectrical devices, and energy conversion, etc. With particular emphasis on the results obtained by the authors’ research group, this feature article gives a brief review of recent progress in the field of surface/morphology controlled syntheses, focusing on high‐energy crystal surfaces of five kinds of inorganic functional material, with the wurtzite, rocksalt, anatase, rutile, and face‐centered cubic structures, respectively. Combined with the theoretical and experimental research results as well as crystal structure models, the intrinsic causes for surface‐dependent chemical/physical properties of those materials with high‐energy surfaces are further discussed. Micro/nanostructured crystallites with high‐energy surfaces have attracted increasing attention owing to their fascinating surface‐dependent properties and promising applications. This feature article provides a brief account of these efforts, especially on several typical crystal structures, including the wurtzite structure (ZnO), rocksalt structure (MgO), anatase structure (TiO2), rutile structure (SnO2), and face‐centered cubic (Au) structure.