PH SENSITIVITY DEPENDENCY ON THE ANNEALING TEMPERATURE OF SPIN-COATED TITANIUM DIOXIDE THIN FILMS

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films were fabricated on indium tin oxide (ITO) glass substrates using the spin coating technique and further were implemented as sensing membranes of the extended gate field effect transistor (EGFET) based pH sensor. The as-deposited thin films were annealed at different temperatures from 200 - 600 °C in room ambient for 20 min. The effects of different annealing temperatures on electrical and crystalline properties were analyzed by I-V two point probes measurement and X-ray diffraction respectively. Meanwhile, the surface morphology of thin films was observed by field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). We then measured the transfer characteristics (ID-VG) of the TiO2/ITO sensing membrane using a semiconductor parametric device analyzer for sensor characterization. It was found that, TiO2/ITO sensing membrane annealed at 300 °C achieved higher sensitivity and good linearity of 51.48 mV/pH and 0.99415, respectively in the pH buffer solutions of 4, 7, 10, and 12. Thin film annealed at 300 °C gives higher conductivity thin film of 384.62 S/m. We found that the conductivity of TiO2/ITO thin films was proportional with the sensitivity of sensing membrane.