Optical properties of zinc titanate perovskite prepared by reactive RF sputtering

In this paper we report results from optical transmittance spectroscopy complemented with data on structure from XRD measurements to determine optical properties of a series of ZnTiO₃ perovskite thin films deposited on glass by reactive magnetron co-sputtering. The members of the series differ by the titanium content that was revealed as an origin of the changes not only in structure but also in dispersive optical properties. Low porosity has been discovered and calculated using the Bruggeman effective medium approximation. An apparent blue-shift of the optical band gap energies with increasing titanium content was observed. The observed band gap engineering is a good prospective for eg optoelectronic and photocatalytic applications of ZnTiO₃.