  In this paper, RF sputtered antimony vanadium oxide (SbVO4) thin films and
its characterization are reported. High purity sputtering targets were
fabricated by sintering a mixture of Sb2O3 and V2O5 powders. Thin films were
deposited by reactive sputtering at various temperature and argon/oxygen
partial pressures. Several growth parameters and surface chemistry were studied
by applying numerous optical and electrochemical characterization technique. It
is found that SbVO4 exhibits an indirect band gap in the range of 1.89 eV to
2.36 eV and has desirable valence band position to drive water oxidation
reaction under illumination. The bandgap depends heavily on stoichiometry of
the film and can be modulated by incorporating controlled amount of oxygen gas
in plasma environment. Optimized SbVO4 photoanodes was designed and tested for
photoelectrochemical water oxidation catalysis. Preliminary studies show that
these electrodes possess n-type catalytic behavior in alkaline media. The
prepared SbVO4 thin films, with typical film thickness was around 400 nm,
contain nanoparticles having the sizes of 10-15 nm.
