Preparation of high quality nitrogen doped TiO2 thin film as a photocatalyst using a pulsed laser deposition method

Nitrogen doped titanium oxide (TiO2-xNx) photocatalysts, which were reported to be activated by visible light irradiation as/oxygen well as ultraviolet irradiation, have been prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method using TiN target in nitrogen gas mixture. Crystalline structure, nitrogen states in the lattice, composition and surface morphology were analyzed by using X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. As the results, it is found that film structure and properties strongly depend on target material and nitrogen concentration ratio in the gas mixture. The materials show anatase structure with nitrogen doped into TiO2 oxygen sites, which leads to band gap narrowing, (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.