Volume 12 Issue 1 ( March 2025)

The radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering was used to deposit pure TiO₂ and TiO₂/Zn thin films onto glass substrates. Annealing of the obtained thin films was done at 200°C, 250°C, and 300°C in a tube furnace for one hour each to see the effect of annealing on their properties. The effect on the films' structure, optical characteristics, and morphologies due to annealing temperature were analyzed using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis spectroscopy, and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometry (EDS) in electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The films revealed XRD peaks for hkl values (101), (004), (111), (200), (211), and (220) at 2θ=25.2°, 37.19°, 41.25°, 47.57°, 55.0°, and 62.2° respectively of anatase phase. From XRD, it appears that pure anatase TiO₂ phase is being created and after Zn coating on TiO₂ the anatase phase remains unchanged. In UV-Vis measurements all samples show low absorbance in visible region with a pronounced absorption edge in the ultraviolet region. Zn coating resulted in an increased bandgap for the TiO₂ thin films due to alter in the electronic structure and crystallite size. Furthermore, the direct bandgap of the annealed samples were reduced with annealing temperatures for both the cases. The existence of homogeneous thin films was demonstrated by the FE-SEM characterization data. This work advances the growth of novel material for a large range of technical uses in optoelectronic device applications.

Keywords: Thin Film; Annealing; XRD; UV-Vis; FE-SEM; EDS