Growth of SrTiO3 thin film on a glass substrate by the sol-gel-assisted hydrothermal method

Abstract

In this study, SrTiO3 thin films underwent fabrication on glass substrates using the in-situ sol-gel-hydrothermal method. The overall formation procedure comprised two primary stages. In this first, the TiO2 layer deposition on the glass substrates was performed using the sol-gel method. Next, diffusing the Sr2+ ions in the TiO2 layer for obtaining SrTiO3 was performed via the hydrothermal method by modifying the amount of strontium ions within the solution. The crystal structure analysis shows that all the prepared SrTiO3 thin films are polycrystalline with a perovskite structure. The surface morphology of SrTiO3 thin films demonstrates that the STF-50 sample has the smallest average particle size of 147 nm with a thickness of 247 nm. The SrTiO3 thin layer interaction with the glass substrate was observed in the FTIR spectrum with the presence of Ti-O and Si-O-strain vibrations of TiO6 octahedral in SrTiO3 the perovskite structure, and silanol and siloxane groups from the glass substrate. The UV-DRS measurement spectrum suggests that the optical band gap energy value decreases when raising the thickness of the thin film, indicating the dependence of optical properties on the thickness of the resulting film.