Spectroscopic and Electrical Properties of Ag2S/PVA Nanocomposite Films for Visible-Light Optoelectronic Devices

Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites are potential materials in the industrial sector and in our daily life due to their diverse properties and applications. Throughout the present study, solution casting technique has been used to prepare polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) filled with different weight (wt.) ratios percentages (%) (0, 0.01, 0.1, 1.0 and 10.0 wt%) of silver sulfide nanoparticles (Ag2S NPs). The concentration dependence of spectroscopic and electrical behaviors based on PVA polymer dispersed with Ag2S has been investigated. The prepared films with the variation of loading filler concentrations from 0 to 10 wt% have been characterized by different spectroscopic techniques. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis confirmed the successful incorporation of Ag2S nanoparticles in the PVA matrix by studying the changes of the characterizing bands which reveal the interaction within the composite structure. Whilst photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the Ag2S/PVA nanocomposite films showed an interesting peak covering the entire range of interest for visible light optoelectronic devices at a very low concentration of the loading filler of Ag2S. The electrical properties of the plain and Ag2S NPs doped PVA nanocomposites have been studied using DC electrical conductivity (σDC) measurements performed over a temperature (T) range from 298 to 373 K. The study demonstrates the increase of the DC electrical conductivity with increasing filler content of Ag2S by three orders of magnitude. DC conductivity also showed temperature dependent behavior where the conductivity enhanced by five orders of magnitude when temperature increased up to 373 K. These novel results present Ag2S/PVA nanocomposites as a promising material in optoelectronics applications.