Aqueous‐Phase Synthesis of Single‐Crystal Ceria Nanosheets

The evolution of sheet morphology for single-crystal ceria nanosheets with a thickness of about 2.2 nm and lateral dimensions up to 4 μm (see picture), involves two-dimensional self-organization of the initially formed ceria nanocrystals, followed by recrystallization. Ceria nanosheets exhibit an unusually large optical band gap energy due to the quantum size effect associated with their extremely small thickness.