Swift heavy ion irradiation induced phase transformation in undoped and niobium doped titanium dioxide composite thin films

Study reports the effect of swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation induced phase transformation in undoped and Niobium doped anatase TiO2 composite thin films. Investigations were carried out at different densities of electronic excitations (EEs) using 120 MeV Ag and 130 MeV Ni ions irradiations. Films were initially annealed at 900 °C and results revealed that undoped films were highly stable in anatase phase, while the Nb doped films showed the composite nature with the weak presence of Niobium penta-oxide (Nb2O5) phase. The effect at low density of EEs in undoped film show partial anatase to rutile phase transformation; however doped film shows only further growth of Nb2O5 phase beside the anatase to rutile phase transformation. At higher density of EEs induced by Ag ions, registered continuous ion track of ∼3 nm in lattice which leads to nano-crystallization followed by decomposition/amorphization of rutile TiO2 and Nb2O5 phases in undoped and doped films, respectively. However, Ni ions are only induced discontinuous sequence of ion tracks with creation of damage and disorder and do not show amorphization in the lattice. The in-elastic thermal spike calculations were carried out for anatase TiO2 phase to understand the effect of EEs on anatase to rutile phase transformation followed by amorphization in NTO films in terms of continuous and discontinuous track formation by SHI irradiation.