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Structural, Optical, and Photoelectrochemical Properties of Sprayed TiO 2 Thin Films: Effect of Precursor Concentration
Author(s) -
Shinde Pravin S.,
Patil Pramod S.,
Bhosale Popat N.,
Bhosale Chandrakant H.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1551-2916.2008.02287.x
Subject(s) - materials science , crystallite , anatase , thin film , amorphous solid , band gap , tin oxide , tetragonal crystal system , scanning electron microscope , substrate (aquarium) , titanium dioxide , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemical engineering , photocatalysis , doping , crystal structure , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , crystallography , composite material , chemistry , catalysis , biochemistry , oceanography , chromatography , geology , engineering , metallurgy
Thin films of titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) have been deposited from methanolic titanyl acetylacetonate precursor solution onto the preheated amorphous and fluorine‐doped tin oxide (F:SnO 2 )‐coated glass substrates at optimized substrate temperature of 470°C by a spray pyrolysis technique. The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of film thickness on the structural, optical and photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties of TiO 2 thin films by varying the precursor concentration from 0.05 M , at the interval of 0.025 M , to 0.125 M . X‐ray diffraction shows that the films are polycrystalline with anatase phase having tetragonal crystal structure. Scanning electron microscopy reveals uniform and compact distribution of spherical clusters comprising nanoplatelets of size ∼200–400 nm. The films are nearly stoichiometric as confirmed by energy‐dispersive X‐ray analysis. Atomic force microscopy study also reveals uniform distribution of grains of size ∼180–370 nm. The films are transparent (with % T >70) and film thickness varies over 162–758 nm range with increase in precursor concentration. The band gap energy varies from 3.31 to 3.36 eV. Thickness of the TiO 2 films is shown to have an influence on the PEC performance and plays an important role in determining the efficiency of the PEC cell. The precursor concentration of 0.1 M is optimized using PEC technique. Incident photon to current conversion efficiency of 71.24% is obtained for 600 nm thick TiO 2 film.