Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICS, cilt.56, sa.4, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Cerium dioxide (CeO2) thin films were deposited onto Corning glass substrates via RF magnetron sputtering. A subset of the samples was retained in the as-deposited state, whereas the remaining subsets were annealed at 400 degrees C, 600 degrees C, and 800 degrees C. The objective of this study is to systematically investigate the influence of post-deposition thermal treatment on the structural, morphological, optical, and photocatalytic characteristics of the films. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that annealing at 600 degrees C enhanced crystallinity and increased crystallite size, whereas atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed a uniform, densely packed surface morphology. UV-Vis spectroscopy revealed that, considering all sample sets, the optical band gap gradually narrowed from 3.55 +/- 0.05 eV (as-deposited) to 3.45 +/- 0.05 eV (800 degrees C). Photocatalytic performance was evaluated by measuring methylene blue d under UV irradiation, with the 600 degrees C-annealed film achieving the highest degradation efficiency (similar to 78%) owing to its superior structural and morphological features. In contrast, annealing at 800 degrees C led to microstructural reorganization and texture evolution, which adversely affected the photocatalytic activity despite a further reduction in the optical band gap. These results demonstrate that the annealing temperature is a critical parameter for tuning the performance of CeO2 thin films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering and provide valuable insights into the rational design of sputter-deposited rare-earth oxide thin films for photocatalytic water purification applications.