Phase formation of hexagonal wurtzite ZnO through decomposition of Zn(OH)2 at various growth temperatures using CBD method

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanophosphors were fabricated from zinc acetate dehydrate, thiourea and ammonia via the chemical bath deposition (CBD) method at various growth temperatures. TGA results showed the increase in thermal stability of ZnO with the increase in growth temperature. From DSC results we observed a decrease in melting temperatures due to the crystallization of the ZnO with the increase in growth temperature. The melting enthalpy values were too scattered to make definite conclusions. XRD indicated the decomposition of structure from Zn(OH)2 to hexagonal wurtzite ZnO. The estimated average particle sizes are in the range of 22nm. The estimated average particle size fluctuated with an increase in the growth temperature. The SEM morphology showed the full formation of flakes-like at high growth temperature. At low growth temperature shows flakes-like morphology combined with some small spheres. The EDS results confirmed the presence of Zinc (Zn) and Oxygen (O) as the major products, and the ratio of the Zn to O increased with the increase in growth temperature. A red-shift in reflectance spectra was observed, which resulted in the decrease in the band gap energy of the ZnO with an increase in growth temperature. The temperature dependent PL spectra of the ZnO showed visible emission due to defects. The novelty in this study lies within the increase in the amount of weight loss observed from TGA and DSC analysis and another important aspect is the transformation of Zn(OH)2 to the well-known hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO with the increase in growth temperature. This study provides a simple and efficient approach for the synthesizing of the ZnO with flakes-like morphology.