Synthesis and doping of TiO2 thin films via a new type of laser plasma source

The paper reports the characterization of doped TiO2 films produced by a modified laser plasma source. The peculiarity of the utilized apparatus was that both synthesis and doping were carried out in the same process, via Pulsed Laser deposition (PLD) in vacuum (growth) and by means of low-energy ion implantation or PLD in background gas (doping). Four TiO2 films were produced using a titania sample as target for laser ablation: one pure (used as reference and grown in vacuum), two doped with Cu and Ni ions (the accelerating voltage was 20 kV) and another one doped with nitrogen (using N-2 as background gas). The chemical structure of the obtained films was characterized by Raman spectroscopy, whereas their uniformity and thickness by Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry. We also investigated the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 films under sunlight and UV irradiations by using methylene blue.