Synthesis and Characterization of Gadolinium Doped Zinc Oxide Nanorods Thin Films

Nurulnadia Sarip,S.N.M Tawil,Mohd Zainizan Sahdan,M.S.M Sam,S.A Kamaruddin,A.L Nordin,Fahanahani Mahmud

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.773-774.734

Abstract

ZnO nanorods (NRs) arrays were synthesized by chemical solution deposition (CSD) method on commercial glass substrate with ZnO thin film act as seed layer prepared by sol-gel spin coating. The effect of annealing temperature of 150°C, 250°C and 500°C, respectively, on the structural growth was investigated. The observation reveals the structural improvement as the annealing temperature increased. The influence of gadolinium doping to ZnO NRs arrays was explored upon the structural and optical features. The FESEM imaging along with XRD, AFM and UV-Vis analysis were conducted to dissect the information gained by performing a study case on various gadolinium doping content in the range of 1 at. % to 4 at. %. Based on the results, the correlation between the doping content were drawn in details in this paper.

Highlights

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is well known in the scientific community to possess a lot of advantages in its nature, making it as one of the most prominent material for a variety of electronic and optoelectronic applications [1]
In general, this section reports on the results of the synthesized Gd-doped and pure ZnO nanorods thin films
Analysis reports attained through all four characterization tools, namely the field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), X-Ray diffractometer (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM) and ultraviolet – visible spectrophotometer (UV-Vis), were discussed

Summary

Introduction

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is well known in the scientific community to possess a lot of advantages in its nature, making it as one of the most prominent material for a variety of electronic and optoelectronic applications [1]. Group III elements, i.e. Ga, Al, and In can be used as ntype dopant in ZnO, have been generally recognized to influence the optical and the electrical properties of the materials [2].Other elements of rare earth group, i.e. Ce, Er, Eu, La, Tb, Tm, Yb, and Dy as p-type dopant to ZnO, have attracted significant attention among the community due to their unique optical properties which give to intense emission peaks in the visible and near infrared range [3].the electrical conductivity, type of conduction and band gap range, including the magnetic characteristics of the nanomaterial can be manipulated through doping. Doping effect can enhance the present properties of ZnO and provides space for new applications possible. ZnO-based opto-electronic devices have been reported to appear as doping of ZnO began to become accessible. Gadolinium (Gd) metal of the lanthanum group element was selected as dopant in the work reported here based on the the Gd2O3 physical properties in optical application in amendment to both the electrical and optical characteristics of the ZnO thin films

Methods

Results

Conclusion