Optical properties of MgO-TiO2 amorphous composite films

The microstructure and optical properties of MgO-TiO2 composite thin films prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering were studied. The composite films have an amorphous structure and the growth rate of the composite film increases with increasing Mg content. The refractive index almost linearly decreases with increasing Mg content in the composite films at wavelength larger than 300 nm and can be adjusted in the wide range between the refractive index of TiO2 and that of MgO. The extinction coefficient decreases with Mg content and is nearly zero at visible light region. The optical band gap of the composite films determined from the absorption spectra increases with Mg content, and has a good agreement with that obtained from spectroscopic ellipsometry simulation. A broad photoluminescence band in the visible region was observed in the composite films with high Mg content and was considered resulted from the oxygen vacancies. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.