Fabrication and characterization of Ag–TiO2 multiphase nanocomposite thin films with enhanced photocatalytic activity

Ag–TiO2 multiphase nanocomposite thin films were prepared on quartz substrates by the liquid phase deposition (LPD) method from a mixed aqueous solution of ammonium hexafluouotitanate, silver nitrate and boric acid under ambient temperature and atmosphere followed by calcination at 500°C for 1h. The grain growth of anatase was depressed upon Ag+ doping. However, silver ions not only promoted (or catalyzed) the formation of brookite phase but also reduced the phase transformation temperature of anatase to rutile. With increasing AgNO3 concentration, the transmittance and band gap of the composite thin films decreased; however, the intensity of surface plasmon absorption (SPA) peaks increased and their peak position shifted to a longer wavelength range. When AgNO3 concentration was higher than 0.03M, the prepared samples consisted of anatase, brookite, rutile and metal silver nanocrystal particles, and their grain size ranges were 5–30nm. The photocatalytic activity of the Ag–TiO2 multiphase nanocrystal composite thin films prepared by this method exceeded that of pure TiO2 thin films by a factor of more than 6.3 when AgNO3 concentration was kept in the range of 0.03–0.05. This was attributed to the fact that there were many hetero-junctions, such as anatase/rutile, anatase/brookite, Ag/anatase, Ag/rutile and so on, existed in the Ag–TiO2 multiphase nanocomposite films.