Structural, optical and magnetic properties of silver oxide (AgO) nanoparticles at shocked conditions

Abstract

Silver oxide nanoparticles (AgO NPs) were synthesized by implementing chemical reduction process and two different samples of AgO NPs were loaded with 100 as well as 200 pulses of successive shock waves of Mach number 2.2 so as to investigate the aftermath effect. Various characteristic analytical techniques were carried out for the samples utilizing Powder X-ray diffractometer (PXRD), Ultra-Violet diffuse reflectance spectroscope (UV-DRS), Field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) to find stabilities of crystallographic, spectroscopic, morphological and magnetic behaviors and also to analyze the changes occurring on the properties of the test material due to the impulsion of shock waves. From the obtained XRD patterns, the mean value of grain sizes of unshocked, 100 and 200 shocked AgO NPs is found to be 20, 20.6 and 26 nm, respectively. FE-SEM images reveal that the mean values of particle sizes increase as the counting of shock pulses are increased. The particles sizes are computed to be 72 nm, 112 nm, and 162 nm for the unshocked, 100 and 200 shocked AgO NPs, respectively. Whereas, the values of magnetization of AgO NPs have reduced with regard to the number of shock waves in such a way that the value of 2.183 emu/g for the unshocked AgO NPs is found to have reduced to 1.801 and 1.416 emu/g for 100 and 200 shocks, receptively. The band gap energy of the unshocked and shocked AgO NPs is observed to have the same value of 2.1 eV. From the experiential results, it is very well established that the title material’s properties such as crystalline and molecular structure, band gap energy are stable; whereas, the magnetic properties and surface morphology undergo subtle changes at shocked conditions.