Synthesis and UV detection characteristics of TiO₂ thin film prepared through sol gel route

In this work, TiO₂ thin films were synthesized by sol-gel route initiating titanium isopropoxide and ethanol mixture as a precursor solution. Crystallization and Phase transitions of thin films were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD spectrum shows polycrystalline anatase phase without any considerable impurity phase. UV-VIS spectroscopy of the films shows 70-80% of transmission in the visible region. Optical band gap was calculated from the Tauc's plot and was found to be around 3.3 eV. Scanning electron microscope was used to study the morphological characteristics of TiO₂ thin films. The AFM images indicate that the surface morphology of the film is found to be uniform. Above the film, the aluminum interdigitated electrodes were deposited by thermal evaporation technique. The photo response of the film was measured at different incident powers. The film showed a good photo response with linear behavior for the incident light intensity and applied bias. The better performance of the presented TiO₂ detector suggests that it will have promising potential for UV detector applications.