Characterization of TiO2 thin films derived using acetic acid and nitric acid

• Main Authors: Hamzah, F. (Author), Nur Munirah, S. (Author), Shamsuddin, S. (Author), Yunus, N.N (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malaysian Society of Analytical Sciences 2018
• Subjects: Acid; Characterization; Thin films; Titanium dioxide; Titanium isopropoxide
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher; View in Scopus
• ISBN: 13942506 (ISSN)
• DOI: 10.17576/mjas-2018-2202-20

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films were prepared via sol gel method using different concentration of glacial acetic acid and nitric acid. The deposition of TiO2 gel on the ITO substrate was conducted using spin coating techniques at a rate of 3,000 rpm for 30 s and was calcinated at 500oC for 10 minutes. The study was conducted to determine the surface morphology and characteristic of the TiO2 thin film based on the different acid precursor. The GAA – TiO2 and HNO3 - TiO2 thin film were analyzed using Contact Angle Goniometer for absorption property study and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) for surface topography study. The result indicated that different acid and different concentration influence wettability of the synthesized TiO2 thin film. Higher concentration of GAA results in higher contact angle of TiO2 thin film whereas higher concentration of HNO3 reduced the contact angle of TiO2 thin film. However, the contact angle obtained through this study was in a range of 27.55o – 67.55o for the concentration acid of 8 – 10 mmol which represent hydrophilic characteristic of the TiO2 thin film. For surface analysis, uneven and not uniform surface of thin film was detected for the entire sample. This might be due to the several factors such as temperature and particle size that limited the adhesion of the TiO2 sol gel to the ITO substrate. Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis was used to validate the present of the Ti-O bond vibrations in the sample and it was observed in ranges of 515– 800 cm−1. On the other hand, the crystallinity structure of the synthesized TiO2 was validated using X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The results indicated that both GAA - TiO2 and HNO3 - TiO2 mixtures gave a strong anatase crystal structure. The major XRD diffraction peaks can be attributed to (101), (004), (200), (211), (204) and (116) plane of the tetragonal TiO2-anatase phase. © 2018, Malaysian Society of Analytical Sciences. All rights reserved.