Combined sonochemical/CVD method for preparation of nanostructured carbon-doped TiO2 thin film

The present work reports the successful synthesis of the nanostructured carbon-doped TiO2 thin films on glass substrate by combination of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and ultrasonic methods, for the first time. In this method the ultrasound waves act as nebulizer for converting of sonochemically prepared TiO2 sol to the mist particles. These mist particles were thermally decomposed in subsequent CVD chamber at 320 °C to produce the carbon-doped TiO2 thin films. The obtained thin films were characterized by means of X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The results show that the prepared thin films have anatase crystal structure and nanorod morphology, which calcination of them at 800 °C results in the conversion of nanorods to nanoparticles. In addition, the prepared samples have high transparency, monodispersity and homogeneity. The presence of the carbon element in the structure of the thin films causes the narrowing of the band-gap energy of TiO2 to about 2.8 eV, which results in the improvement of visible light absorption capabilities of the thin film.