Abstract

The morphological manipulation and structural characterisation of TiO2-MgO binary system by an aqueous particulate sol-gel route were reported. Different crystal structures including pure MgTiO3, mixtures of MgTiO3 and TiO2 and mixtures of MgTiO3 and Mg2TiO4 were tailored by controlling Mg:Ti molar ratio and annealing temperatures as the processing parameters. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that all compounds crystallised at the low temperature of 500 A degrees C. Furthermore, it was found that the average crystallite size of the compounds depends upon the Mg:Ti molar ratio as well as the annealing temperature, being in the range 3-5 nm at 500 A degrees C and around 6 nm at 700 A degrees C. Field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) analysis revealed that the deposited thin films had nanocrystalline structure with the average grain size of 25-30 nm at 500 A degrees C depending upon the Mg:Ti molar ratio. Moreover, atomic force microscope (AFM) images presented that the thin films had a hill-valley like morphology made up of small grains.