Optical and electrical properties of high-quality Ti2O3 epitaxial film grown on sapphire substrate

Abstract Epitaxial film of Ti2O3 with high crystalline quality was grown on Al2O3 substrate by pulsed laser deposition process using a powder-pressed TiO2 target in active O2 flow. X-ray diffraction clearly reveals the (0006) crystalline Ti2O3 orientation and its $$ (10\overline{1} 0)_{{{\text{Ti}}_{ 2} {\text{O}}_{ 3} }} ||(10\overline{1} 0)_{\text{sapphire}} $$(101¯0)Ti2O3||(101¯0)sapphire in-plane epitaxial relationship with the substrate. Scanning electron microscopy images show that the film grew uniformly on the substrate with a Volmer–Weber mode. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction further confirm the high crystalline quality of the film. Transmittance spectrum shows that the Ti2O3 film is highly transparent in 400–800 nm with the optical band gap estimated to be 3.53 eV by Tauc plot. The temperature-dependent Hall effect measurement indicates that the Ti2O3 film appears to be n-type semiconductor with carrier concentration, mobility, and resistivity showing typical temperature-dependent behavior. The donor ionization energy was estimated to be 83.6 meV by linear relationship of conductivity versus temperature.