Oxygen adsorption at noble metal/TiO2 junctions

Abstract

Electric conduction in titanium dioxide is known to be oxygen sensitive and the conductivity of a TiO2 ceramic body is determined mainly by the concentration of its naturally occurring oxygen vacancy. Recently, fabrications and electronic features of a number of noble metal/TiO2-based electronic devices, such as solar cells, UV detectors, gas sensors and memristive devices have been demonstrated. Here, we investigate the effect of oxygen adsorption at the noble metal/TiO2 junction in such devices, and show the potentials of these junctions in chemical sensor fabrication. The polycrystalline, poly-phase TiO2 layers are grown by the selective and controlled oxidation of titanium thin films vacuum deposited on silica substrates. Noble metal thin films are deposited on the oxide layers by physical vapor deposition. Current-voltage (I-V) diagrams of the fabricated devices are studied for Ag/, Au/, and Pt/TiO2 samples. The raw samples show no junction energy barrier. After a thermal annealing in air at 250° C, I-V diagrams change drastically. The annealed samples demonstrate highly non-linear I-V indicating the formation of high Schottky energy barriers at the noble metal/TiO2 junctions. The phenomenon is described based on the effect of the oxygen atoms adsorbed at the junction.