Influence of oxygen vacancy on the response properties of TiO2 ultraviolet detectors

In this paper, the effect of sputtering distance between target and substrate (DTS) on the structural, morphological and optical properties of TiO2 films were investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that crystallite size and surface morphology were strongly dependent on DTS. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results showed that obvious three peaks including C1S, Ti2p and O1s could be clearly observed and the binding energy was 285, 458 and 531 eV, respectively. For each sample, four peaks near 386, 462, 527 and 595 nm in photoluminescence (PL) spectra were observed and originated from intrinsic recombination, F center, F+ center and electrons transferred from 3d Ti3+ states to the deep levels OH−, respectively. Finally, the photoresponse properties of UV detectors based on TiO2 films were analyzed and the TiO2 UV detector prepared at a DTS of 80 mm showed high responsivity of 2.02 × 10−4 A/W and excellent photosensitivity of 32.25, also, exhibited a fast response with a rise time (τr) of 0.98 s and fall time (τf) of 3.14 s. •TiO2 films was successfully prepared by magnetron sputtering technology.•Properties of TiO2 films UV detector were mainly decided by oxygen vacancy.•Device showed a fast response with rise time of 0.98 s and fall time of 3.14 s.•Device showed a high photosensitivity of 32.25.