CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The sub-bandgap excited photoconductivity (PC) time decay and the film structure of rf-sputter deposited nanocrystalline TiO2 thin films have been studied. Atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements were used to assess roughness, crystalline structure and mean grain size in the films. Samples fabricated under different deposition conditions exhibit different microstructures and absolute PC, but similar persistent PC behavior after switching off the light source. The very slow PC decay can be well represented by a function that is nearly constant for short times and decreases as a power law for times longer than about 100 s. This function is shown to be consistent with a rate equation characterized by a relaxation time that increases linearly with time. This behavior, in turn, agrees with predictions of a previously reported model that assumes electron-hole recombination limited by carrier-density dependent potential barriers associated to inhomogeneities.