Effect of Sputtering Pressure on Optimization of Titanium Dioxide Nanostructures Prepared by RF Magnetron Sputtering

摘要

Titanium dioxide (TiO_2) nanostructures were deposited on glass substrate by Radio Frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The samples deposited at various sputtering pressures and annealed at 723 K, were characterized using Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to observe the surface morphology and topology, roughness properties and cross-sectional of TiO_2 nanostructures, Field Emission Scanning Electrons Microscope (FESEM) to observe the particle sizes of TiO_2 nanostructures and UV-vis spectroscopy to record the UV-vis transmission spectra. The aim of this paper is to determine which parameter of sputtering pressures influence the optimization of TiO_2 nanostructures. AFM images show that the surface roughness of the samples decreases as the working pressures of sputtering increases. From FESEM images, it can be deduced that the higher the sputtering pressure, the smaller the particle size is. All the samples are highly transmittance with an average transmittance higher than 80% in the visible region as recorded by UV-vis transmission spectra. The relatively high transmittance of the sample indicates its low surface roughness and good homogeneity. For optimum TiO_2 nanostructures deposited at various RF pressures it has the lowest surface roughness and the smallest TiO_2 size particles with the indirect optical band gap of 3.41 eV.