Oxygen and cerium defects mediated changes in structural, optical and photoluminescence properties of Ni substituted CeO2

Abstract

Local and long-range structural properties, of sol-gel synthesized, Ce1-xNixO2 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) nanopowders have been investigated. Substitution of Ce4+ by comparably smaller Ni2+/Ni3+ ions leads to decrement in lattice parameters. UV–visible spectra reveal decrease of bandgap with increase of disorder upon increasing Ni substitution. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra reveal five major peaks attributed to various defect states. Ni substitution results in the creation of oxygen vacancies (VO) which further leads to conversion of considerable amount of Ce4+ ions to larger size Ce3+. These changes notably, modify the structure of the host lattice. The defects created along with the structural modifications bring, changes in the PL emission. The disorder in the lattice results in increase of non-radiative decay which reduces the PL emission. An increasing VO and Ce3+ concentration at the surface acts as emission quenching centers. Lattice disorder and VO quantities were estimated using X-ray absorption (XAS), UV–vis and Raman spectroscopy. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.