Experimental study of properties of TiO2 thin films deposited by spray pyrolysis for future sensory applications

In this present work, we have studied the effect of organic solvents and acetylacetone (Acac) molar ratio on several properties of TiO2 thin films prepared by pneumatic spray pyrolysis (SP). The TiO2 thin films were characterized by the following techniques including the following: X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and UV–visible spectrophotometer. The XRD results showed pure anatase TiO2 thin films with preferential orientation (101) plan, the crystallite size varying between 14.72 and 35.12 nm. The Raman spectroscopy confirmed the formation of the only phase of TiO2 (anatase). The morphological properties were investigated by SEM. The UV–Visible spectrophotometer showed the semiconducting properties of anatase TiO2, and the optical band gap was ranged between 3.17–3.34 eV. The refraction index, the extinction coefficient and the porosity were estimated using transmittance values. The TiO2 thin films have had good properties. They were prepared by low-cost technique, spray pyrolysis, by saving energy and time because the samples were synthesized using air pulverization without using any oxygen sources and without any annealing requires the following: CVD room, low pressure and more time for annealing (Sahoo et al. 2019 in Phys Chem Chem Phys 21: 6198–6206).