Investigation of the physical and electronic properties of indium doped zinc oxide nanofibers synthesized by electrospinning

Abstract

Nanostructured metal oxides and particularly nanofiber based materials can provide significant advances for the miniaturization of electronic, optoelectronic, photonic, sensor, and energy conversion devices with enhanced performance based on their unique material properties. In this study, indium doped zinc oxide (IZO) nanofibers were synthesized by electrospinning. These nanofibers have diameters in the range 50–100nm. The effects of indium addition on the structural, optical, and electrical properties of the zinc oxide nanofiber matrices were investigated. The IZO nanofibers undergo significant changes in their optical and electrical properties compared to undoped zinc oxide nanofibers.

Doping effect of In2O3 on structural and ethanol-sensing characteristics of ZnO nanotubes fabricated by electrospinning

“…It should be noted that the optical band gap energy of the IZO nanotubes decreases with increasing doping levels. Similar results can also be observed in some previous studies [21,34,35]. Fig.…”

“…1a) of IZO-0.20 shift slightly towards lower diffraction angles compared to those of the pure ZnO sample, which can also be observed in IZO-0.10 sample (the shift of peak (101) is Δ2θ = 0.01°), suggesting the structural defects of ZnO caused by indium dopants [33]. It should also be noted that the lattice constant will be increased when the indium atoms incorporated into the ZnO lattice as a substitutional impurity (due to the fact that indium is larger than both zinc and oxygen) [21]. In addition, the EDX spectrum of the IZO samples ( Fig.…”

“…As reported in the previous work, the doped indium atoms could exist in the ion state of In 3+ atoms can act as donor impurities at the substitutional sites of Zn 2+ , or the existence of amorphous In 2 O 3 [21,33]. Both of them may make a great difference in carrier (free electron) concentrations and their gas-sensing properties.…”

“…On the other hand, many previous reports show that a small amount of multivalent ion (In 3+ , Al 3+ , Sn 4+ , etc.) doping could obviously change the crystal defect density and carrier concentration of ZnO matrix [19][20][21][22][23][24], while few work discussed how those two aspects can affect the gas-sensing performances of ZnO matrix.…”

Silanization of ZnO nanofibers by tetraethoxysilane

“…6 Zinc oxide nanofibers have received substantial interest due to its potential applications in nanodevices like varistors, 7 convertors, 8 resonators, 9 light emitting diodes, 10 fluorescence enhancement, 11 and dye sensitized solar cells. 13 Zinc oxide can be synthesized by various techniques including hydrothermal synthesis, 14 electro deposition, arc discharge method, 15 wet chemical methods, thermal decomposition method, 16 sol-gel methods, vacuum evaporation, 17 direct precipitation, 18 RF plasma synthesis, 19 and electrospinning techniques. 13 Zinc oxide can be synthesized by various techniques including hydrothermal synthesis, 14 electro deposition, arc discharge method, 15 wet chemical methods, thermal decomposition method, 16 sol-gel methods, vacuum evaporation, 17 direct precipitation, 18 RF plasma synthesis, 19 and electrospinning techniques.…”