Single material TiO2 double layers antireflection coating with photocatalytic property prepared by magnetron sputtering technique

•Single material TiO2 double layer coating was fabricated by the magnetron sputtering technique.•TiO2 film with high refractive index at 100 °C was prepared by the energy filtrating magnetron sputtering technique.•The coating had both the antireflective and photocatalytic properties.

Single material TiO2 was used to fabricate the double layers antireflection coating with photocatalytic property. TiO2 layers with low and high refractive indices were prepared by the direct reactive magnetron sputtering technique and energy filtrating magnetron sputtering technique, respectively. The structure, surface morphology and optical property were tested by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscope and spectroscopic ellipsometer. The photocatalytic property of the coating was evaluated by UV–vis spectrophotometer. Results suggested that the coating had both antireflective and photocatalytic performances. The refractive indices of the top and bottom TiO2 layers were 2.10 and 2.47 (at 600 nm), respectively. The average and max transmissivities were obtained of 88.4% and 98.9% in the wavelength range of 400–800 nm and the degradation rate on Rhodamine B was obtained of 0.0034 min−1.