Influence of Firing Temperature on Compositional and Structural Properties of TiO₂ Thick Films

TiO₂ thick films prepared by a standard screen printing method and fired between 600°C to 1000°C for 2hours in an air atmosphere. Morphological, compositional, structural properties of the samples were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). X-ray diffraction shows that films are a mixture of anatase and rutile structures. During firing there was a phase transformation up to 900ºC and at 1000ºC the anatase phase disappeared and only rutile phase was found. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the grain size increases as the firing temperature increases. From X-ray diffraction using Scherrer's formula the crystallite size was measured. The crystallite size change from 12.08 to 36.42 nm was found to increase with the firing temperature.