Bozhidar Stefanov

Quantitative relation between photocatalytic activity and degree of 〈001〉 orientation for anatase TiO2 thin films

We demonstrate a quantitative relation between exposed crystal surfaces and photocatalytic activity of nanocrystalline anatase TiO2. Thin films with controlled amount of 〈001〉 preferential orientation were prepared by reactive DC magnetron sputtering in Ar/O2 atmosphere with the partial O2 pressure as control parameter. The samples were characterized with X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy, from which the degree of preferential 〈001〉 orientation and exposed facets were determined by an extension of the March–Dollase model. Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye shows that the photocatalytic reaction rate increases approximately with the square of the fraction of 〈001〉 oriented surfaces, with about eight times higher rate on the {001} surfaces, than on {101}, thus quantifying the effect of crystal facet abundancy on the photocatalytic activity of anatase TiO2.

Fine control of the amount of preferential orientation in DC magnetron sputtered nanocrystalline TiO2 films

Different crystal facets of anatase TiO2 are known to have different chemical reactivity; in particular the {001} facets which truncates the bi-tetrahedral anatase morphology are reported to be more reactive than the usually dominant {101} facets. Anatase TiO2 thin films were deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering in Ar/O2 atmosphere and were characterized using Rietveld refined grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy and UV/Vis spectroscopy. By varying the partial O2 pressure in the deposition chamber, the degree of orientation of the grains in the film could be systematically varied with preferred orientation changing from random upto 39% as determined by March-Dollase method. The orientation of the films is shown to correlate with their reactivity, as measured by photo-degradation of methylene blue in water solutions. The results have implications for fabrication of purposefully chemically reactive thin TiO2 films prepared by sputtering methods.

Structural and morphological properties of sol-gel ZnO:Ni films

Ni doping induces modifications and considerable changes in the optical, electrical and magnetic properties of ZnO films. In this work, the influence is discussed of Ni-doping (two nickel concentra ...

Morphological study of Sol-Gel derived ZnO:In thin films

This work presents morphological, structural and optical studies of ZnO and ZnO:In nanostructured thin films depending on In doping (four different concentrations). XRD study of 600°C annealed ZnO:In films reveals that crystallization strongly depends on indium concentration. The films are crystallized in wurtzite structure and only for the films with highest In addition, two crystal phases are detected wurtzite ZnO and cubic In2O3. The AFM investigation reveals that the lowest Root Mean Squared Roughness(RMS) is revealed for ZnO:In 0.5 film (15.96 nm) and the roughness increases up to 64.52 nm for ZnO:In 1. Columnar type structures can be observed in the AFM micrographs of the other two films — ZnO:In 2 and ZnO:In 3, as the columns vary in height and size. The effect of the indium doping into ZnO reveals changing of optical transmittance compared to ZnO film. The optical band gap of ZnO:In films, annealed at 600°C is in the range of 3.06–3.27 eV.