Impact of annealing temperature on praseodymium cerium telluride nanoparticles synthesise via hydrothermal approach for optoelectronic application

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we use hydrothermal technique to synthesise the nanoparticle of praseodymium, cerium telluride (Pr0.2Ce0.5Te0.2) using 0.2 mol of praseodymium (III) oxide (Pr2O3), and 0.5 mol of cerium (III) nitrate hexahydrate (Ce(NO3)3.6 H2O) and 0.2 mol of Te(NO3)4and evaluate how varying annealing temperature influences the material’s optical, structure, morphology, and electrical characteristics. The XRD pattern reveals a polycrystalline structure with 2theta angle of 8.418°, 9.644°, 11.037°, 13.824°, 16.442°, 19.151°, 22.262°, 40.938°. Corresponding to the diffraction peaks (011), (012), (111), (121), (114), (200), (211), (311) it was observed that the praseodymium cerium telluride nanoparticles display a significant nanoflake structure. It was observed that the size of the large nanoflakes decreased. When subjected to annealing, the surface energy of the material increased due to the presence of nanoparticle clusters. The nanoparticle that underwent annealing at 400°C was found to be more susceptible to agglomeration due to the strains that resulted from the high-temperature treatment. Praseodymium cerium telluride is highly absorbent, especially in the ultraviolet and blue light ranges. The unannealed praseodymium cerium telluride nanoparticles have a bandgap energy of 2.75 eV, which is observed to narrow down to a range of 2.61–2.37 eV as the temperature for annealing is increased.