The hydrophobic films of TixOy-CmHn deposited from mixture gases of titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) and oxygen by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) were investigated. The films were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), element analysis (EA), ultraviolet visible spectrometer (UV-Vis), and water contact angle (WCA). The results reveal that the surface of the films is formed by microsized papillaes aggregated by inorganic and organic phases of complex nanoparticles with size from 50 nm to 200 nm when the discharge power is increased from 40 W to 150 W. All films demonstrate the strong broad of Ti-O-Ti stretching vibration at 400-800 cm-1, -CH bending vibration at 1388 cm-1, and broadening -OH stretching vibration at 3000-3500 cm-1. With the increase of the discharge power, the as-deposited film changes from amorphous to crystallization. The WCA of the film can be as high as 160°, indicating the hydrophobicity. The films show a similar ultraviolet absorption property as the bulk TiO2 film. The composition of the composition of film deposited at 150 W can be formulated as Ti0.3O2-C1.5H3. Therefore, the composition formula of this hydrophobic film could be expressed as TiO2-C5H10O4.7. It is believed that the complex micro/nano structures of TiO2 and C5H10O4.7 residues are responsible for the observed hydrophobicity and the ultraviolet absorption property of the film.
Deposition of TiO2 film from atmospheric pressure non-equilibrium Ar/O2/TiCl4 plasma was done to study the effect of discharge power during the film deposition process in this paper. TiO2 films with kinds of morphologies and controlled crystallization were deposited from mixtures of TiCl4 and O2 on quartz substrate by one step process. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used to analyze the morphology and crystallization of the deposited TiO2 films. It was found that the discharge power played a key role in the morphology and crystallization of the deposited TiO2 film whether the flow of TiCl4 was large or small. When the flow of TiCl4 was large, the deposited TiO2 film was amorphous particles at low discharge power and was multi-crystalline at high discharge power. When the flow of TiCl4 [JP2]was small, the deposited TiO2 film became more compact and the crystallization was enhanced as the discharge power increased . The dependence of the discharge current and the applied voltage with the discharge power indicated that it was a glow discharge. The gas temperature which increases with the discharge power is one of the main causes that affect the morphology and crystallization of the deposited film.
