Effect of iron doping on structural and optical properties of TiO2 thin film by sol–gel routed spin coating technique

• Main Authors: Stephen Lourduraj, Rayar Victor Williams
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: World Scientific Publishing 2017-08-01
• Series: Journal of Advanced Dielectrics
• Subjects: TiO2 thin film; Fe-doped TiO2 thin film; sol–gel method; spin coating; calcination
• Online Access: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/S2010135X17500242

Thin films of iron (Fe)-doped titanium dioxide (Fe:TiO2) were prepared by sol–gel spin coating technique and further calcined at 450∘C. The structural and optical properties of Fe-doped TiO2 thin films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–vis) and atomic force microscopic (AFM) techniques. The XRD results confirm the nanostructured TiO2 thin films having crystalline nature with anatase phase. The characterization results show that the calcined thin films having high crystallinity and the effect of iron substitution lead to decreased crystallinity. The SEM investigations of Fe-doped TiO2 films also gave evidence that the films were continuous spherical shaped particles with a nanometric range of grain size and film was porous in nature. AFM analysis establishes that the uniformity of the TiO2 thin film with average roughness values. The optical measurements show that the films having high transparency in the visible region and the optical band gap energy of Fe-doped TiO2 film with iron (Fe) decrease with increase in iron content. These important requirements for the Fe:TiO2 films are to be used as window layers in solar cells.