Band gap shift and the optical nonlinear absorption of sputtered ZnO-TiO2 films

ZnO-TiO2 composite films with different Zn/Ti atomic ratios were prepared with radio frequency reactive sputtering method. The Zn percentage composition (f(Zn)) dependent optical band gap and optical nonlinear absorption were investigated using the transmittance spectrum and the Z-scan technique, respectively. The results showed that composite films with f(Zn) in the range of 23.5%-88.3% are poor crystallized and their optical properties are anomalous which exhibit adjustable optical band gap and large optical nonlinear absorption. The optical absorption edge shifted to the blue wavelength direction with the increasing of f(Zn) and reached the minimum value of 285 nm for the sample with f(Zn) = 70.5%, which has the largest direct band gap of 4.30 eV. Further increasing of f(Zn) resulted in the red-shift of the optical absorption edge. The maximum optical nonlinear absorption coefficient of 1.5 x 10(3) cm/GW was also obtained for the same sample with f(Zn) = 70.5%, which is more than 40 times larger than those of pure TiO2 and ZnO films.