Ultraviolet Radiation Detection by Barium Titanate Thin Films Grown by Sol-gel Hydrothermal Method.

Ferroelectric Barium titanate, BaTiO 3 (BTO) thin film has been prepared successfully by sol-gel hydrothermal method (SG-HT) which combines the basic sol-gel process with hydrothermal treatment. High resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) study reveals single phase polycrystalline tetragonal structure of the prepared BTO thin film. Optical properties were studied using UV- Visible spectroscopy and band gap was found to be 3.51 eV. The I–V characteristics revealed a low dark current (I off ) of 6.07 × 10 -9 A for the prepared BTO thin film which increases to 4.06 × 10 -6 A (I on ) by almost three orders of magnitude when illuminated with UV radiation (λ = 365 nm, Intensity = 24 μW/cm 2 ). The photoconductive gain (K = I on /I off ), was found to be 6.7 × 10 2 . It can be clearly seen that the prepared BTO film can be utilized as an efficient Ultraviolet photodetector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]