Thin Titanium films were fabricated on quartz substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering under high vacuum. Subsequent annealing at temperatures of 600 ∘C in air resulted in single-phase TiO2 with the structure of rutile, as X-ray diffraction experiment demonstrates. Atomic-force microscopy images verify the high crystalline quality and allow us to determine the grain size even for ultrathin TiO2 films. Rutile has a direct energy band gap at about 3.0-3.2 eV; however, the transitions between the valence and conduction band are dipole forbidden. Just a few meV above that, there is an indirect band gap. The first intense absorption peak appears at about 4 eV. Tauc plots for the position of the indirect band gap show a "blue shift" with decreasing film thickness. Moreover, we find a similar shift for the position of the first absorbance peak studied by the derivative method. The results indicate the presence of quantum confinement effects. This conclusion is supported by theoretical calculations based on a combination of the effective mass theory and the Hartree Fock approximation.
Keywords: optical properties; potential morphing method; quantum confinement; rutile; semiconductor oxides; thin films.