Abstract-TiO 2 nanoparticles were prepared at room temperature by sol-gel method. In the current work, different surfactants such as Acetic Acid (AA), Oleic Acid (OA), and Oley amine (OM) were used for the preparation of TiO 2 nanoparticles. TiO 2 powder was collected by centrifuging precipitation obtained during gel formation. The powder was thoroughly cleaned few times in ethanol and annealed at 550o C and 950o C at specific time. I-V measurement is used to investigate the electrical properties of TiO 2 pallets. In order to elucidate the influence of using these surfactants, the structural and optical properties of powder were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), U-v visible, and Photoluminescence (PL). It was found that annealing could improve the crystallization of TiO 2 powders and accelerated the phase transformation from anatase to rutile phase but surfactants do not change the particle size and energy band gap of titania.Index Terms-TiO 2 Powder, sol-gel, surfactants, annealing, electrical, optical, and structural properties.
I. INTRODUCTIONResearchers have tried to find an insulator with a higher dielectric constant, large band gap, significant conduction band offset and high breakdown strength. Titanium is the ninth most abundant element in the Earth's crust [1]. Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has high thermal and chemical stability and high transmittance in the visible spectral range [2]. Moreover, it is nontoxic, and applicable for biological coatings, optical devices, and photo electrochemical conversion, environmental photocatalytic processes such as prevention of strains, sterilization and removal of pollutants from air and water [1], sensors, preparation of solar energy cells, fabricating thin dielectrics in dynamic random access memory (DRAM) storage capacitors and as a gate dielectric of FETs [2].TiO 2 could be formed in three possible crystallographic phases such as anatase, rutile, and brookite. Among these, anatase has excellent chemical and physical properties for environmental purification and is thermodynamically more stable than rutile phase. Furthermore, titania possess high available surface areas, which are beneficial for aqueous photocatalytic reactions [3]. The photocatalytic activity can increase dramatically, when the particle size of TiO 2 decreases. The most popular commercial form of
B. Preparation of TiO 2 NanoparticlesAcetic Acid was added drop wise in absolute ethanol under vigorous stirring and a transparent solution was obtained. Subsequently, TIP was added drop wise to the solution to form the uniform solutions. The molar ratio of TIP/Ethanol/AA was kept 1:9:0.1 during the synthesis part. The same ratio was maintained using OA, whereas (1:9:0.2) ratio was kept in case of using OM as a surfactant [5]. The sol was further subjected to stirring for 24 h, and then the gel particles were separated by centrifugation under 12000 rpm followed by intermittent washing with ethanol thrice. The resulted precipitate was dried at room temperature. The collected nano-TiO 2 powd...