ABSTRACT
This chapter uses chemical bath deposition to synthesize a series of titania thin films on indium tin oxide glass and investigates the effect of cyclic deposition on phase composition, microstructure, and electrical resistivity of TiO2 thin films. It should be mentioned that the normal X-ray diffraction is not ideal for characterizing the phase compositions of thin films due to relatively high penetrating depth of X-rays in symmetric mode. The electrical resistivity or conductivity of TiO2 films was measured using four-point probes. By knowing the resistivity, one can infer whether the film produced is a conductor or semiconductor. The application of TiO2 as a photoconductor must have properties of a semiconductor because a conductor has no band-gap energy. TiO2 films produced by a single deposition cycle were amorphous. Both the film thickness and electrical resistivity of TiO2 increased with an increase in the number of deposition cycles.
