Fabrication and structural characterization of TiO nanoparticle soft-landed on substrate by the magnetron sputtering-gas aggregation method

We have succeeded to fabricate the thin film mainly or entirely consisting of nano-crystallites TiO on a substrate at room temperature by using the magnetron sputtering combined with the gas aggregation method which has the capability to deposit grown small particles and/or clusters of the desired compound material on the substrate in soft-landed mode. The important experimental parameters to control the growth of TiO particles are identified as partial pressure of additional oxygen gas, growth-reaction distance L _td, and LN₂ cooling of growth chamber. The smallest averaged diameter of TiO nano-particles is 5.62 nm and size distribution being from 2 to 8 nm under 50 mm of L_td. The compositional uniformity is confirmed by EDS and EELS. The chemical state of the film observed by Ti 2P XPS peak confirms the primarily growth of TiO and indicates the formation of minor content of amorphous Ti_1-xO_x and/or Ti_1-xC _x particularly at the surface of the film.