Effect of additives and precursor chemical structure on crystalline shape and optical properties of TiO2

This paper proposes a new simple approach for synthetic of shape-defined anatase nanocuboids TiO2 by using combination of titanium tetra isopropoxide (TTIP) and orthotitanic acid (H4TiO4) as titanium precursor. In first step by adding precursor to ethanol solution mixed with HCl the primary sol has been prepared, therefore two other different films by adding Methylcellulose (MC) as a carbon containing material and adding TiO2 nanopowder as nanofiller have been prepared and properties of thin film as a function of parameters of annealing temperature and additives, have been discussed. The films were deposited on glass substrates and characterized by using UV–vis spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM results show that optical properties of TiO2 thin films were changed by baking in 300, 400 and 500 °C as annealing temperature. Moreover, they indicate that the additives have strong effect on anatase structure and therefore influence the optical properties.