Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Alkali metal (Li(+), Na(+), K(+)) intercalated titanate nanotubes have been studied by vibrational spectroscopy (Raman and FT-infrared), X-ray diffraction, and electron microscopy. The vibrational spectroscopic data shown that the most affected vibrational mode is that related to Ti-O bond whose oxygen is not shared among the TiO(6) units of the framework structure. A correlation between vibrational frequency shifts and intercalated metal was found, thus showing that vibrational spectroscopy is very useful for probing metal intercalated titanate nanotubes. Our results provide good evidences that the structure of titanate layers in titanate nanotube, a subject of long debate in the literature, is similar to trititanates (like Na(2)Ti(3)O(7)). (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.552183187Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)FUNCAPFAPEPIFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)CNPq [306335/2007-7, 620238/2008-9]