Photocatalytic properties of nanocrystalline TiO2 thin films doped with Tb

In this work photocatalytic properties of TiO2 thin films doped with different amount of Tb have been described. Thin films were prepared by high energy reactive magnetron sputtering process. Comparable photocatalytic activity has been found for all doped TiO2 thin films, while different amounts of Tb dopant (0.4 and 2.6 at. %) results in either an anatase or rutile structure. It was found that the terbium dopant incorporated into TiO2 was also responsible for the amount of hydroxyl groups and water particles adsorbed on the thin film surfaces and thus photocatalytic activity was few times higher in comparison with results collected for undoped TiO2 thin films.