Synthesis and Structural Properties of (Co, Al) Co-Doped ZnO Nanoparticles

Abstract

Pristine and (Co, Al) co-doped ZnO nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized by chemical coprecipitation method without using capping agent and annealed in the furnace at 500 °C for one hour. The aluminium concentration is fixed at 5 mol% and cobalt concentration is increasing from 1 to 3 mol%. X-ray diffraction results shows that all the samples possess hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO having no secondary phase after adding of aluminium and cobalt, which may be ascribed to the incorporation of cobalt an aluminium ions into the Zinc oxide host lattice site rather than interstitial. Non-uniform spherical nanoparticles were observed through SEM and the elemental analysis is determined through Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Raman spectrum shows that the prominent peak appeared at 530 cm−1, for co-doped samples which is attributed to the local vibration mode corresponds to cobalt bound with the donor defects.