Evaluation of Particle Size, Lattice Strain and Estimation of Mean Square Amplitudes of Vibration, Debye Waller Factor and Debye Temperature for Metal Oxide Nanoparticles

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were synthesised by high-energy ball mill. Zinc oxide powders were ball milled in an argon inert atmosphere. The powder was characterized by XRD and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements. The vacancy formation energy as a function of Debye temperature has been studied. Lattice strain (ε), root mean square amplitude of vibration (uav), Debye–Waller factor (Bav), energy of vacancy formation (Ef) are found to increase, and particle size (t), mean Debye temperature (θM) are found to be decrease with the milling time 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 h. The particle size values for X-ray study are 224, 103, 82, 54, 34 and 33 nm. The particle size values for SEM characterization are 200, 100, 80, 50, 32 and 32 nm. The SEM values are good agreement with X-ray characterization values.