Growth of nanocolumnar porous TiO2 thin films by magnetron sputtering using particle collimators

The selective incorporation of deposition species with preferential directionality is analyzed during the growth of TiO2 thin films by magnetron sputtering. Using wisely-designed collimators, tilted nanocolumnar morphologies are grown in a ballistic deposition regime, i.e. when most deposition species arrive at the film surface along well-defined preferential directions, and also in a thermalized deposition regime, when these species follow an isotropic momentum distribution in the plasma gas. The obtained results suggest that the use of particle collimators may promote the growth of porous thin films even in the classical magnetron sputtering configuration, when the target and the substrate are parallel. General insights are given on this approach and, as a proof of concept, its principles applied for the synthesis of nanostructured films in a laboratory-size reactor.