Effect of Mg2+ ions substitution on phase formation, structural, morphological, and optical properties of Zn0.1−xMgxO structure

Abstract

In the present research work, Mg-doped zinc oxide Zn 0.1-x Mg x O (For x = 0.000, 0.002, 0.006, 0.010) nanoparticles were synthesized by co-precipitation method. The effect of Mg 2? ions substitution on structural, phase transformation, morphological, and optical properties was investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and UV-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), respectively. The XRD study shows the formation of pure hexagonal wurtzite phase which was also confirmed using Rietveld refinement performed using Fullprof software. The average crystallite size of Mg-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles calculated using Debye-Scherrer relation found to vary from 43.36 to 36.12 nm with increase in Mg concentration from 0 to 10%. The UV-Vis study reveals the blue shift in optical band gap for all the samples as molar concentration of Mg increases in ZnO lattice which was attributed to quantum confinement effect. Further, results of other studies including XRD viz., Raman, UV-Vis, and FE-SEM show that this method of synthesis can be utilized for increasing the optical band gap of the Zn 0.1-x Mg x O nanocrystals by retaining the pure ZnO phase up to 10% doping of Mg 2? ions concentration.