Annealing effect on structural and electronic properties of iron-doped zinc oxide nanomaterials for theranostic application

Abstract

Zinc oxide has drawn attention to the development of theranostic material due to its superior biocompatibility compared to other semiconductor nanomaterials. Zinc oxide has a wide bandgap which favorable for quantum dots imaging agent. By coating zinc oxide with a suitable functional polymer, ZnO nanocrystal can be used for delivering the therapeutic agent and examining its effect on the biological environment. This research focuses on the comparison of ZnO and Fe-doped ZnO QDs characteristic synthesized from ZnCl2 with co-precipitation method under the influence of different solvent and calcination temperature. The material was precipitated from solution by dropwise addition of sodium hydroxide solution in water and absolute ethanol. The resulting precipitate then calcined at 200, 400, 600 and 800°C for three hours. The materials then subjected to characterization process using UV-Vis spectroscopy and P-XRD. The results show that the ZnO and Fe-doped ZnO QD absorption spectra are redshifted toward the longer wavelength and the bandgap value analyzed using Tauc plot was smaller than the bulk bandgap of ZnO (3.37 eV).