AIP Advances (Apr 2017)
Erbium diffusion in titanium dioxide
Abstract
The diffusivity of erbium in the anatase phase of titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been studied for various temperatures ranging from 800 °C to 1, 000 °C. Samples of TiO2, with a 10 nm thick buried layer containing 0.5 at% erbium, were fabricated by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and subsequently heat treated. The erbium concentration profiles were measured by secondary ion mass spectrometry, allowing for determination of the temperature-dependent diffusion coefficients. These were found to follow an Arrhenius law with an activation energy of ( 2.1 ± 0.2 ) eV. X-ray diffraction revealed that the TiO2 films consisted of polycrystalline grains of size ≈ 100 nm.