Effect of thermal annealing on the structural and optical properties of TiO2 nanostructures**

Abstract

Abstract In this work, TiO nanostructure films were deposited via vacuum thermal evaporation at a temperature of 80°C. The TiO thin films were annealed under vacuum for 1 h at three different degrees (200, 300, and 400°C) in addition to the thin film prepared at 80°C. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) showed that all the deposited and annealed TiO films had anatase polycrystalline diffraction patterns with a predominant reflection of the (200) plane. As a result, the particle size increased with annealing temperature. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) measurements showed that at the annealed temperature of 200°C, the shape of the TiO nanostructures began to change from a condensed cluster distribution to a conical shape. As the annealing temperature was increased to 400°C, all the conical shapes transformed into clear spherical shapes. The spherical shapes recorded 45 (nm) height and (20) (nm) base width. Optical measurements were performed using Ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis). The transmittance is reduced from 79.63% for the TiO sample prepared at 80°C to 71.91% for the TiO sample annealed at 400°C. The optical energy gap values decrease from 3.279 eV for the prepared TiO sample at 80°C to 3.115 eV for the TiO sample annealed at 400°C.