Structural, morphological and optical aspects of novel synthesized pristine and hafnium doped nickel oxide nanoparticles

Abstract

The manuscript attempted to synthesise novel pure and Hafnium doped Nickeloxide (HNO) nanospheres using the facile co-precipitation route. Though the material is novel, a thorough enquiry on the structural, morphological and optical aspects of HNO is indeed and is carried out via various characterization techniques. The synthesis route guaranteed the production of nanosized spheres with reduced crystallite size was confirmed with structural and morphological studies. X-ray diffraction XRD) confirms the face centred cubic structure of NiO nanostructures, and it upholds the evidence of doping in NiO lattice. The morphological analysis was carried out with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope, confirming the spherical NiO nanostructures and the effect of doping on its morphological properties. Furthermore, the UV analysis assessed the absorption spectra and the bandgap value is calculated using Kubelka–Munk plot. Moreover, PL analysis revealed that the doped samples exhibit a high bandgap above 3 eV and have strong emissions under 266 nm and 280 nm excitation wavelength.