Assessment of antibacterial and optical features of sol-gel dip coated La doped TiO2 thin films

The effect of Lanthanum ions (La3+) has been investigated on TiO2 thin films with varying La doping percentage from 6 to 10 at.wt. La ions have incorporated into the TiO2 lattice, while no lattice changes in TiO2 has taken place. The band gap of La-doped TiO2 thin films varies with increase in La dopant percentage. SEM images show a nanocrystalline morphology and agglomeration of the grains at high dopant percentage. Higher value of dielectric constant (31.5) and low tangent loss (0.021) are observed. Variation in DC conductivity with change in frequency is recorded by applying Jonscher's power law. AC conductivity is linked with barrier-hopping mechanism. La doped TiO2 thin films show room temperature ferromagnetism. The La doped TiO2 has shown little antibacterial activity.