Microstructural and Optical properties of Silver doped Cadmium Sulphide Nanoparticles

Abstract

Abstract The nanoparticles of Ag-doped CdS have been successfully synthesized at room temperature by sol-gel method using cadmium acetate, silver nitrate and sodium sulphide as precursor materials. The structural and morphological analyses have been performed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX). The results of structural characterizations show the formation of Ag-doped CdS nanoparticles in a single phase without any impurity. The average crystallite size of all nanoparticles was calculated by Debye−Scherrer formula which came out to be 6 nm for pure CdS and increased to 10 nm for Ag-doped CdS nanoparticles. The optical absorption of the prepared Ag-doped CdS samples was determined by UV-visible spectrophotometer in the range of 350 to 800 nm. The band gap energy for pure CdS was estimated by Tauc relationship and found to be 2.7 eV, whereas it decreased to 2.3 eV for the Ag doped CdS.