Self-propagating combustion synthesis of CdSiO3 nano powder: structural and dosimetric applications

Abstract

Un-doped CdSiO3 nano phosphor has been synthesized by a low temperature solution combustion technique using cadmium nitrate as a cadmium source, oxalyldihydrazide (ODH) as a fuel and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as a silica source. Powder x-ray diffraction (PXRD) patterns of CdSiO3 sample calcined at 800 °C for 2 h show monoclinic phase. The average crystallite sizes were estimated using Debye–Scherrer’s formula and Williamson–Hall (W–H) plots and are found to be 23–32 nm, respectively. SEM and TEM images of CdSiO3 reveal that they are foamy products with large agglomerates of very fine particles and the particles are in nano size. The optical energy band gap (Eg) of un-doped sample was estimated from Tauc relation as 5.6 eV. Thermoluminescence (TL) spectrum of the samples irradiated with UV source in the dose range 5–40 min was recorded at a heating rate of 5 °C s−1. The phosphor shows a well resolved glow peak at ∼166 °C. It is observed that TL intensity increased almost linearly with increase of dose, which is highly useful in radiation dosimetry. The kinetic parameters such as activation energy (E), frequency factor (s) and order of kinetics was estimated by three different methods.