Study on the synthesis of uniform TiO₂ films through evaporation-induced assembly

A new synthesis route has been developed to synthesize transparent nanocrystalline TiO₂ thin films with uniform morphology using TiCl₄ as the inorganic precursor through evaporation-induced assembly (EIA), which combined the sol-gel and self-assembly technique. The obtained samples were characterized in detail by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and N₂ adsorption-desorption. The result shows that the obtained TiO₂ material calcined at 450°C possesses uniform nanocrystallite anatase particles with 13 nm. With the increase of calcination temperature, the anatase crystallite size was increased, while the BET surface area of the obtained sample was decreased. The crystalline structure transformation from anatase phase to rutile phase occurs at 800°C.