Study on the photocatalytic activities of TiO2 films prepared by reactive RF sputtering

Titanium oxide (TiO2) films were deposited on non-alkali glass by reactive radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering using a Ti metal target in this study. The deposition parameters employed to realize the photocatalytic activities of TiO2 films include RF power, deposition time, argon–oxygen ratio (O2/(Ar + O2)) and substrate temperature. The orthogonal array and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were adopted to determine the effect of the deposition variables on characteristic properties and the optimal conditions. The results indicated that a higher photocatalytic activity of TiO2 films could be achieved under RF power of 150 W, deposition time of 3 h, argon–oxygen ratio of 40% and substrate temperature of 80 °C. RF power and argon–oxygen ratio had a higher effect on the methylene blue (MB) absorbance. The validation experiments show an improved photocatalytic activities of 5% when the Taguchi method is used.