Effect of Cr incorporation on the structural and optoelectronic properties of TiO2:Cr deposited by means of a magnetron co-sputtering process

Abstract In this work, we report on the effect of Cr incorporation on the microstructural and optical properties of TiO 2 :Cr thin films deposited by the RF-magnetron sputtering method. The structural, morphological, chemical bonding and optoelectronic properties of the sputter-deposited TiO 2 :Cr films were systematically investigated, as a function the incorporated Cr content, by means of various techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier-Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) absorption, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and ellipsometry. The Cr incorporation into the TiO 2 films was controlled by adjusting the RF power ( P Cr ) on the Cr target during the co-sputtering process of TiO 2 and Cr. We were thus able to demonstrate that by varying P Cr from 8 W to 150 W, the Cr content of the TiO 2 :Cr films can be fairly controlled from ∼2 at.% to ∼18 at.% and their associated bandgap engineered from 3.3 eV to 1.5 eV. The room-temperature deposited TiO 2 :Cr are mainly amorphous with the presence of some TiO 2 nanocrystallites, and their density increases as their Cr content is increased. The Cr inclusions were found to coexist under both metallic and oxidized forms in the films. By subjecting the TiO 2 :Cr films to post-annealing treatment (at 550 °C), their crystalline structure was found to be sensitive to their Cr content. Indeed, an anatase-to-rutile phase transformation has been pointed out to occur at a Cr content of ∼7 at.%. Likewise, the Cr-content dependence of the bandgap of annealed TiO 2 :Cr films undergoes a transition around the 7 at.% of Cr. Our results demonstrate the ability to control the Cr-content of TiO 2 :Cr films, which leads to tune their optoelectronic properties, such as bandgap or optical absorption edge.