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Effects of Sputtered High-Energy Particles on the Structure and Photocatalytic Performance of TiO2 Films Prepared by a DC Reactive Sputtering Method

By using the Kevin–Meyer formula, we calculated the energy of the high-energy particles (recoil argon ions and negative oxygen ions) that are unique to sputtered thin-film formation when they arrived at a substrate during the sputtering process. We found that the energy of the high-energy particles arriving at the substrate decrease if total gas pressure increases, whereas the photocatalytic performance of a TiO2 film increases if the total gas pressure increases. We also found that as total gas pressure increases, the surface morphology changed from a gap-free structure to a porous structure in which subgrains were observed. Accordingly, the average surface roughness (Ra) and surface area (S) of the thin film increased. The number of defects, mainly oxygen defects, in the forbidden band also changed depending on the energy of the high-energy particles. Therefore, it was found that the high-energy particles affect the surface area of the TiO2 thin films and the formation of defects in the thin films, which consequently influences the photocatalytic performance.