TY - JOUR ID - TI - Comparative Study of Structural and Optical Properties of Silicon Dioxide Nanoparticles Prepared by DC Reactive Sputtering and Sol-Gel Route AU - Nora H. Mutesher AU - Firas J. Kadhim PY - 2021 VL - 17 IS - 1 SP - 17 EP - 20 JO - Iraqi Journal of Applied Physics المجلة العراقية للفيزياء التطبيقية SN - 18132065 23091673 AB - In the present work, nanostructured silicon dioxide thin films were synthesized using two different deposition techniques: sol-gel and dc reactive plasma sputtering. Amorphous structural phase of silica films was observed for the samples synthesized by both methods. The scanning electron microscopy indicated that the average particle size of samples prepared by plasma sputtering was smaller than that of samples prepared sol-gel. The spectroscopic measurements confirmed the formation of siloxane bonds as well as the high content of hydroxyl groups in samples prepared by sol-gel while those prepared by plasma sputtering showed lower content of OH while siloxane was not found in the final sample at all. Energy band gap was determined and found to be 4.57 eV for sample prepared by sol-gel and 3.82 eV for samples prepared by plasma sputtering. These results highlight the advantages of plasma sputtering technique over sol-gel as thin film deposition methods.

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