Abstract
Atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) deposition techniques are useful today because of their simplicity and their time and cost savings, particularly for growth of oxide films. Among the oxide materials, titanium dioxide (TiO2) has a wide range of applications in electronics, solar cells, and photocatalysis, which has made it an extremely popular research topic for decades. Here, we provide an overview of non-thermal APP deposition techniques for TiO2 thin film, some historical background, and some very recent findings and developments. First, we define non-thermal plasma, and then we describe the advantages of APP deposition. In addition, we explain the importance of TiO2 and then describe briefly the three deposition techniques used to date. We also compare the structural, electronic, and optical properties of TiO2 films deposited by different APP methods. Lastly, we examine the status of current research related to the effects of such deposition parameters as plasma power, feed gas, bias voltage, gas flow rate, and substrate temperature on the deposition rate, crystal phase, and other film properties. The examples given cover the most common APP deposition techniques for TiO2 growth to understand their advantages for specific applications. In addition, we discuss the important challenges that APP deposition is facing in this rapidly growing field.
Highlights
Plasma is defined as fully or partially ionized gas with many unique properties attributable to the long-range electromagnetic interaction between charged species
The films present in the “as-deposited” film, but this could be removed by post-deposition annealing. Deposited with this method exhibited an almost 50% higher photoconversion efficiency, attributed to the films deposited with this method exhibited an almost 50% higher photoconversion high porosity compared to commercial TiO2 nanoparticles, when both were employed as photoanodes efficiency, attributed to high porosity compared to commercial TiO2 nanoparticles, when both were in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) [64]
This review reported three common Atmospheric pressure plasma (APP)-enhanced methods to deposit TiO2 thin films: plasma-enhanced chemical deposition, atomic layer deposition, and atmospheric pressure–dielectric barrier discharge deposition
Summary
Plasma is defined as fully or partially ionized gas with many unique properties attributable to the long-range electromagnetic interaction between charged species. It is undesirable to have such excessive heat in contact with the heat-sensitive or softer surfaces used in material processing, such as coating, cleaning, and etching For these applications, cold plasmas may be a good alternative, as the electrons have high thermal energy, while the heavier species remain “cold”. There is a long history of using non-thermal (non-equilibrium) plasmas in material processing; using atmospheric pressure plasmas (APPs) to do so is recent. This novel approach to material processing is appealing because of the combination of simplicity, low cost, and the wide range of possibilities for surface treatment and modification [5,6]. Due to the non-equilibrium nature of non-thermal plasmas, films can be deposited at low temperatures with a chemical composition and crystalline morphology that would be unattainable under higher-temperature equilibrium conditions [13]
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