Influence of Sn4+ ion on band gap tailoring, optical, structural and dielectric behaviors of ZnO nanoparticles

K Saravanakumar; P Sakthivel; R K Sankaranarayanan

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2021.120487

Influence of Sn⁴⁺ ion on band gap tailoring, optical, structural and dielectric behaviors of ZnO nanoparticles

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2022 Feb 15;267(Pt 1):120487. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2021.120487. Epub 2021 Oct 13.

Authors

K Saravanakumar¹, P Sakthivel², R K Sankaranarayanan³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Mahendra Institute of Technology (Autonomous), Mallasamudram, Namakkal 637 503, Tamil Nadu, India. Electronic address: saravanan.phy@gmail.com.
² Department of Physics, Centre for Materials Science, Faculty of Engineering, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore 641 021, Tamil Nadu, India. Electronic address: sakthi1807@gmail.com.
³ Centre for Nano Science and Technology, Chennai Institute of Technology, Kundrathur 600 069, Tamil Nadu, India.

PMID: 34689004
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2021.120487

Abstract

II-VI semiconductors are being attracted due to excellent optical and electronic behaviors when they utilize for device fabrication. Among II-VI semiconductors, Zinc oxide finds cutting-edge results for various applications with a lack of toxicity. Sn⁴⁺ ion incorporated ZnO nanoparticles have been synthesized using a soft chemical route and characterized for the investigation of properties like structural, morphological, elemental, optical and dielectric responses. The prepared ZnO had a hexagonal structure and the particles size reduces by the influence of Sn⁴⁺ ion: this reduction rate increases for the increase of doping ratio. The average particles size was estimated within 24-34 nm. TEM, HRTEM and SEM results corroborate the structural aspects noticed using XRPD study. UV-vis study results showed that a blue shift on the optical band gap was received for high doping concentration (10 at.%) of Sn⁴⁺. PL peaks were observed in the UV region for 0 at.% and 2 at.% Sn⁴⁺ doped ZnO nanoparticles, and the peak position was shifted from UV to violet and blue region for 10 at.% Sn⁴⁺ doped ZnO nanoparticles. The dielectric permittivity was reduced due to the addition of Sn⁴⁺ ions. The AC conductivity was increased for higher doping concentrations. The Sn⁴⁺ ion incorporated ZnO nanoparticles shall be useful for various applications including LED fabrication for blue emission and also it is suitable to act as a buffer material in solar panel.

Keywords: Band gap; Blue emission; Blue shift; Dielectric; Sn(4+); ZnO.