Study of structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties of metal doped zinc oxcide nanoparticles

Abstract

A detailed study was carried out to investigate the effects of Ga3+ on structural, morphology, vibrational, optical and electrical properties of ZnO (x = 0, 0.01, 0.03, & 0.04) polycrystalline powders synthesis via a sol-gel method. Rietveld refinement of powder x-ray diffraction data showed that all samples are in hexagonal Wurtzite (with space group P63mc) phase at ambient temperature. The lattice parameters increases, crystallite size increases from 50.90 nm to 89.28 nm, and strain decreases from 0.0026 to 0.0014 for x = 0, and 0.04 composition respectively. Vibrational study also revealed that all samples are in single phase. FESEM images show the hexagonal morphology for ZnO nanoparticles and become denser with increase in gallium doping. Ga doping increases optical band gap of ZnO from 3.18 eV to 3.28 eV for x = 0 & 0.04 respectively, due to decreasing defect level and stress. In addition, the I-V response indicates that the electrical conductivity is highly improved with Gallium doping. All samples are applicable as a TCO material.