Photo-induced self-cleaning and biocidal behaviour of titania and copper oxide multilayers

This paper describes the deposition of films of titania and copper oxide by atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition (CVD). The films were investigated as part of multilayer systems to assess their potential to offer the dual functionality of self-cleaning and biocidal films. The multilayer systems were achieved by deposition of copper oxide with subsequent titanium dioxide deposition and vice versa. Two different CVD approaches were employed in combination, thermal CVD and flame-assisted CVD. It is shown that by careful choice of the experimental growth conditions, multilayers can be formed with both biocidal and ‘self-clean’ functionality under UV photo-induced conditions.