Morphology, structure and optical properties in TiO_2 nanostructured films annealed at various temperatures

Abstract

Amorphous TiO2 nanostructured thin films (TNFs) were deposited by the glancing angle deposition technique (GLAD) with an electron gun. All of the prepared TNFs were composed of discrete nanoscale columns, characterized by scanning electron microscope. With the annealing treatment, the pure anatase phase was transformed from amorphous TNFs. The morphological, structural and optical properties of TNFs under the annealing treatment were measured, and the evolvement mechanism was further analyzed. The optimum annealing temperature for the pure anatase precipitation of TNFs is about 400°C. The variation of morphology, chemical state and crystallization of TNFs also resulted in the shift of the transmittance spectra. The results show that appropriate post-annealing treatment can build fine nanostructures and pure anatase precipitation, which can support the applications and researches about the anatase phase TNFs powerfully.