Influence of the oxygen consumption on the crystalline structure of titanium oxides thin films prepared by DC reactive magnetron sputtering

In the present work, a simple route to control the growth of different crystalline titanium oxides thin films prepared by reactive sputtering is reported. Using the film pumping speed, the oxygen consumption or “oxygen gettering” in the reactive process is monitored, obtaining different titanium suboxides (TSO's) films with high deposition rate in the metallic zone of the reactive process. On the other hand, it was also obtained titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films at the beginning of the oxidative region, without using postdeposition thermal annealing. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy were used to determine the different titanium oxides according to the oxygen percentage added to the chamber during the reactive process.