Synthesis of Cerium doped Zinc oxide nanoparticles by aqueous precipitation method and study on the structural and optical properties

Dojalisa Sahu

doi:10.17485/ijst/v13i14.337

Abstract

Objectives: To understand the effect of impurity element doping; especially rare earth (Ce) ions on structural and optical properties of ZnO. Method: Co-precipitation method is used to prepare nanoparticles of pristine ZnO and ZnO doped with cerium. This method is found to be very useful in preparing nanoparticles of very low size. The property of the samples is studied by different characterization techniques such as Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), UV-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Findings: XRD studies reveal the crystallographic data which tells that the prepared ZnO is of hexagonal wurtzite phase with size of 35 nm. Crystallite size and unit cell volume increase with cerium doping. FESEM study shows the formation of nanoparticles. FTIR study shows the position of different stretching and bending modes present in the sample. It confirms the position of metal-oxygen bond. Photoluminescence and UV-VIS spectra show the interesting optical properties of Ce-ZnO. The PL spectra show the presence of UV excitonic emission and visible defect emissions along with emissions due to dopant. Upon Ce doping, ZnO shows a new peak around 645 nm ascribed to the transition related to dopant level. Enhancement in emission in visible-red region of ZnO with Ce doping will be useful in preparation of LED. Keywords: ZnOCe, Optical study, Photoluminescence, Co-precipitation

Highlights

Nanotechnology is one of the interesting branches of modern science which has scope in many fields for designing of products for human use [1]
Sahu et al / Indian Journal of Science and Technology 2020;13(14):1480–1485 and chemical properties which enhances its applicability. It is a wide band gap semiconducting material which finds its use in opto-electronics
The wide band gap of ZnO is responsible for its applicability as a potential material for fabricating light emitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes (LDs) and detectors [2,4]

Summary

Introduction

Nanotechnology is one of the interesting branches of modern science which has scope in many fields for designing of products for human use [1]. Zinc oxide is one such material which has tremendous applications in the above fields [2,3,4]. Sahu et al / Indian Journal of Science and Technology 2020;13(14):1480–1485 and chemical properties which enhances its applicability. It is a wide band gap semiconducting material which finds its use in opto-electronics. The band gap of ZnO is 3.37 eV with high excitonic binding energy (60 meV) [2,3,4] The wide band gap of ZnO is responsible for its applicability as a potential material for fabricating light emitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes (LDs) and detectors [2,4]

Objectives

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Conclusion