The laser ablation technique was employed to prepare TiO2 nanoparticles by pulsed laser ablation of a titanium target immersed in the poly-(vinylpyrrolidone) solution using wavelength of 1 064 nm. The as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results indicate that the rutile TiO2 nanoparticles are synthesized at room temperature and the average size is about 35 nm with narrow size distribution. A possible formation mechanism was discussed and the UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence were measured. The optical study shows that rutile nanoparticle possesses direct optical transition with band gap of 3.15 eV. The laser ablation technique was employed to prepare TiO2 nanoparticles by pulsed laser ablation of a titanium target immersed in the poly- (vinylpyrrolidone) solution using a wavelength of 1 064 nm. The as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results indicate that the rutile TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized at room temperature and the average size is about 35 nm with narrow size distribution. A possible formation mechanism was discussed and the The optical study shows that rutile nanoparticle possesses direct optical transition with band gap of 3.15 eV.