Sol–gel synthesis, characterization and optical properties of mercury-doped TiO2 thin films deposited on ITO glass substrates

The Hg-doped and undoped nano-crystalline TiO2 films on ITO glass substrates surface and polycrystalline powders were prepared by sol–gel dip coating technique. The crystal structure and surface morphology of TiO2 were characterized by means of X-ray diffractometer (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM), spectrophotometer, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The results indicated that the powder of TiO2, doped with 5% Hg in room temperature was only composed of the anatase phase whereas in the undoped powder exhibits an amorphous phase were present. After heat treatments of thin films, titanium oxide starts to crystallize at the annealing temperature 400 °C. The average crystallite size of the undoped TiO2 films was about 8.17 nm and was increased with Hg-doping in the TiO2 films. Moreover, the grains distributed more uniform and the surface roughness was greater in the Hg-doped TiO2 films than in the undoped one. Refractive index and porosity were calculated from the measured transmittance spectrum. The values of the index of refraction are in the range (1.95–2.49) and the porosity is in the range (47–2.8). The coefficient of transmission varies from 60 to 90%. SE study was used to determine the annealing temperature effect on the optical properties in the wavelength range from 0.25 to 2 μm and the optical gap of the Hg-doped TiO2 thin films.