Crystallization of amorphous titanium oxide films upon annealing in an oxygen atmosphere

•Titanium oxide films were synthesized by magnetron sputtering and annealed at temperatures of 700, 800, and 900 °C in an oxygen atmosphere.•X-ray amorphous films time constants of crystallization were obtained upon the study of the morphology, optical and luminescent properties.•Activation energy of the crystallization process was determined on the order of 0.6 eV.•The developed kinetics model of nanocrystals growth shows the activation energy corresponds to the diffusion energy of oxygen vacancies.