Synthesis of Zn1-xCuxO Nanoparticles by Coprecipitation and Their Structure and Electrical Property

Abstract

The Zn1-xCuxO (x = 0 - 6% wt) nanoparticles has been synthesized by coprecipitation method using zinc acetate dihydrate, and copper powder were employed with HCl and NH4OH respectively as solvent and precipitating agents. The effect of Cu concentration on structural, optical, and electrical properties of Zn1-xCuxO nanoparticles were investigated. The diffraction patterns of XRD indicate that Zn1-xCuxO phase crystallized in the wurtzite structure having crystal size which was evaluated by using MAUD software, in the range of 28 - 79 nm. Electron microscope analysis shows the morphology of Zn1-xCuxO is nanowires, having finer grains with the increasing content of Cu. The Cu doping reduced the optical band gap energy from 3.10 eV to 2.80 eV, while the electrical conductivity increased from 1.18 × 10-8 to 24.25 × 10-8 S/cm. This result implies that Cu+ or Cu2+ ions have substituted Zn2+ ions. However, doping of Cu more than 4% wt increase optical band gap which makes the electrical conductivity decrease. The electrical conductivity obtained from this study is significantly higher than that reported previously.