Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
Antimicrobial behavior of nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide (TiON) thin films was examined by cell viability assays under visible light illumination, using Escherichia coli as the indicator. The nitrogen doping was found to enable visible-light inactivation of Escherichia coli on titanium oxide films. At a light intensity of 1.6 mW/cm2, TiON films reached a bacterial killing rate of about 50% in half an hour, comparable to those reported for ultraviolet light irradiated TiO2. In the range of nitrogen concentrations from 0.2 to 0.9, the bacterial killing rates showed no clear correlation with the nitrogen concentration for the TiON films.