Abstract
Titanium dioxide thin films were deposited by RF Sputtering technique on Silicon (100) and ITO substrates followed by annealing at 500 °C for 6 h. The synthesized samples were irradiated with Ti9+ heavy ions of energy 120 MeV at various fluences. The strain, stress and crystallite size were calculated by analysing the data of X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. The increase in crystallite size was observed from XRD analyses. Modifications in the surface morphology, surface roughness, RMS roughness and grain size distribution were investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Variation in optical energy band gap was observed by Tauc's relation, which shows decreasing trend with increases in fluence (3.91 eV–3.58 eV). Urbach energy and extinction coefficient were also determined in Uv–Visible characterization. Raman spectroscopy was used to identify the crystal phases and chemical structure of virgin and irradiated TiO2 thin film samples. The statistics of oxygen bonding to the metal ions and information about phase composition in the material was estimated by the FTIR study. Furthermore, the Rutherford backscattering (RBS) experiment was carried out to confirm the film thickness and presence of Ti in the samples. Herein disorder in the structure has been introduced through irradiation leading to improvement in texturing and crystallization at different irradiation fluence.
Published Version
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