Optimization of TiO2 films prepared by reactive electron beam evaporation of Ti3O5

In this paper, we report the development of TiO(2) films by reactive electron beam evaporation, using a recently introduced Ti(3)O(5) material as the starting material. During experiments, considerable effort was undertaken to optimize the deposition conditions for preparation of high quality TiO2 films. The processing window for preparation of high quality stoichiometric TiO2 was found to be quite narrow. The refractive index at 550 nm was approximately 2.41 for the samples. Combinations of spectroscopic ellipsometry and transmittance or reflectance spectrophotometry were used to measure and characterize the optical properties of the films. The surface morphology and microstructure were investigated by using atomic force microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The hardness and Young's modulus were calculated to be approximately 12 and 138 GPa by the nanoindentation measurements.