title: An investigation into the optimum thickness of titanium dioxide thin films synthesized by using atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition for use in photocatalytic water oxidation.
abstract: Twenty eight films of titanium dioxide of varying thickness were synthesised by using atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of titanium(IV) chloride and ethyl acetate onto glass and titanium substrates. Fixed reaction conditions at a substrate temperature of 660 °C were used for all depositions, with varying deposition times of 5-60 seconds used to control the thickness of the samples. A sacrificial electron acceptor system composed of alkaline sodium persulfate was used to determine the rate at which these films could photo-oxidise water in the presence of 365 nm light. The results of this work showed that the optimum thickness for CVD films on titanium substrates for the purposes of water oxidation was ≈200 nm, and that a platinum coating on the reverse of such samples leads to a five-fold increase in the observed rate of water oxidation.
authors.affiliation: Christopher Ingold Laboratory, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AJ, UK.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hyett
authors.forename: Jawwad A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Darr
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.forename: Ivan P
authors.initials: IP
authors.lastname: Parkin