Abstract
The effect of Fe ion concentration on the morphological, structural, and optical properties of TiO2 films supported on silica (SiO2) opals has been studied. TiO2:Fe2O3 films were prepared by the sol-gel method in combination with a vertical dip coating procedure; precursor solutions of Ti and Fe were deposited on a monolayer of SiO2 opals previously deposited on a glass substrate by the same procedure. After the dip coating process has been carried out, the samples were thermally treated to obtain the TiO2:Fe2O3/SiO2 composites at the Fe ion concentrations of 1, 3, and 5 wt%. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs show the formation of colloidal silica microspheres of about 50 nm diameter autoensembled in a hexagonal close-packed fashion. Although the X-ray diffractograms show no significant effect of Fe ion concentration on the crystal structure of TiO2, the μ-Raman and reflectance spectra do show that the intensity of a phonon vibration mode and the energy bandgap of TiO2 decrease as the Fe(+3) ion concentration increases.