Effect of annealing temperature on structural, morphological and electrical properties of nanoparticles TiO2 thin films by sol-gel method

In this paper, the sol-gel method is used to prepare nanoparticles titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films at different annealing temperature. The prepared sol was deposited on the p-SiO2 substrates by spin coating technique under room temperature. The nanoparticles TiO2 solution was synthesized using Ti{OCH(CH3)2}4 as a precursor with an methanol solution at a molar ratio 1:10. The prepared TiO2 sols will further validate through structural, morphological and electrical properties. From the X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, as-deposited films was found to be amorphous in nature and tend to transform into tetragonal anatase and rutile phase as the films annealed at 573 and 773 K, respectively. The diversification of the surface roughness was characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM) indicated the roughness and thickness very dependent on the annealing temperature. The two-point probe electrical resistance and conductance of nanoparticles TiO2 thin films were determined by the DC current-voltage (IV) analysis. From the I-V measurement, the electrical conductance increased as the films annealed at higher temperature.