Chemical State of Nitrogen and Visible Surface and Schottky Barrier Driven Photoactivities of N-Doped TiO2 Thin Films

N-doped TiO2 thin films have been prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and by physical vapor deposition by adding nitrogen or ammonia to the gas phase. Different sets of N-doped TiO2 thin films have been obtained by changing the preparation conditions during the deposition. The samples have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman, UV−vis spectroscopy, and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS). By changing the preparation conditions, different structures, microstructures, and degrees and types of doping have been obtained and some relationships have been established between these film properties and their visible light photoactivity. The N1s XP spectra of the samples are characterized by three main features, one tentatively attributed to Ti−N (i.e., nitride with a binding energy (BE) of 396.1 eV) and two others with BEs of 399.3 and 400.7 eV, tentatively attributed to nitrogen bonded simultaneously to titanium and oxygen atoms (i.e., Ti−N−O like species). By controlling the deposit...