Enhancement of Electrical Conductivity in Nanostructured Metal Oxide Composite

Abstract

Nanomaterials have been recognized for their excellent thermal, optical, electrical properties with robust machine-driven strength. The oxide and nanocomposite have been prepared using n-type semiconductor material i.e., tin oxide and zinc oxide through Sol–Gel technique. The materials were further characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), etc. The XRD analysis of metal oxide and nanocomposite have been performed to determine the crystallite size and structural phase and it confirms the presence of tetragonal phase for tin oxide and hexagonal phase for zinc oxide. At the same time, composite material contains both the phases. The different morphology was observed for the tin oxide, zinc oxide and composites materials using the SEM images. With the help of SEM characterization, the surface morphology of oxide and nanocomposites have been investigated individually where the agglomeration of particles as nanostructure for tin oxide, nanorod formation for zinc oxide, and flakes like structure for oxide composites etc., have been also observed. The BET analysis was carried out for the tin oxide, zinc oxide and composite materials to find out the specific surface area and pore size distribution. It was found that composite of tin oxide and zinc oxide showed the highest BET surface area evaluated as 47 m2g−1 in comparison to pure ZnO nanoparticle and SnO2 nanomaterial. The conductivity for metal oxide and nanocomposite has been measured to predict the sensing performance of the materials.