Abstract
A systematic study on the preparation of pure SnO2 nano-particles and Ni- doped SnO2 with different doped concentrations (0%,0.3%,0.7%) have been conducted. Facile sol-gel technique has been used for sample preparations where as SnCl4, NiCl2 and ammonia solution has been used as precursors. The influence of the Ni doping concentration on the structure and optical properties of the different synthesized samples of SnO2 was investigated. Pure and Ni doped SnO2 nano-particles obtained have been characterized by using by X-rays diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), U.V Spectrophotometer and Photoluminescence Spectroscopy . X-ray diffraction patterns showed for all samples that SnO2 have tetragonal structure with no additional peaks corresponding to parasitic phases. This showed that doped material has been doped uniformly inside the SnO2. Particles size of pure and Ni doped nano-particles was also calculated. Calculated particles size ranges from 4 nm to 25 nm. An increasing behaviour of particles size has been observed with increasing percentage of Ni. Optical properties of the Pure and doped materials have also been measured. Optical absorption measurements showed decreasing behaviour of energy band gap with increasing concentration of Ni which revealed that the nanometric size of the materials influences the energy band gap values. Optical transmittance was also measured at room temperature which showed an increasing behaviour with increasing doping concentration.
Keyword(s)
SnO2, Nidoping, Nano-particles, Sol-Gel Method, Optical Properties