The Effect of Solvent Variation on Structural, Optical, and Electrical Properties of TiO2 Films Prepared by Hydrothermal Method

Abstract

In this work, we reported a study on the hydrothermal process used to create TiO 2 NRs films on FTO substrate utilizing two various solutions, the first one is composed of (ethanol, and titanium butoxide) while the second is composed of (HCl, DIW, and titanium butoxide). The study on the structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties helped to identify the characteristics of the TiO2 film which were prepared by using different solvents, the first sample (TO1) presented anatase -phase crystal structure with (3.2 eV) energy gap while the second (TO2) presented a Rutile phase with (3 eV) energy gap. The (nanorod) morphology was observed for the (TO2) sample while irregular grains were found for the (TO1) sample. Transmittance measurements have been used to investigate the optical properties, which revealed that both samples were transparent in the visible wavelength range, and absorption coefficients were higher for sample (TO2) with a rutile phase. The activation energy was (0.0226) eV and (0.0643) eV for both samples (TO1) and (TO2), respectively. The n-type conductivity was confirmed by Hall Effect measurement for both samples. The highest conductivity (300.655) (Ω -1 .cm -1 ) and carrier consternation (1.07355 ×10 17 ) (cm -3 ) were attained from sample (TO1