Uniformly Spherical and Monodisperse Antimony- and Zinc-Doped Tin Oxide Nanoparticles for Optical and Electronic Applications

Abstract

Doping is an effective way to tune the band gap of metal oxide semiconductor materials. Doped tin oxide nanoparticles have proven to be effective materials for various electro-optical applications, particularly when deposited in thin-film architectures. However, doping in metal oxide nanoparticles generally leads to distorted shapes and a lack of uniformity, making the ready preparation of spherical, monodisperse doped tin oxide stand-alone nanoparticles an elusive task. This report describes a facile, solution-based method for the synthesis of stable, monodisperse antimony- and zinc-doped tin oxide nanoparticles, which opens the door to disperse these materials in a variety of media and expand their range of applications. The band gap of the tin oxide nanoparticles was successfully tuned upon doping with antimony and zinc. The tin-oxide-based nanomaterials were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Separately, the optical properties of the nanoparticles were evaluated by UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). These nanoparticles can be very effective in creating well-controlled systems for photocatalysis, solar cells, optoelectronics, multilayered devices, and for the treatment of air and water pollutants.

Nontoxic photoluminescent tin oxide nanoparticles for cell imaging: deep eutectic solvent mediated synthesis, tuning and mechanism

“…Tin oxide is an important category of wide band gap (3.6eV) n-type semiconductor material with proven potential of applications 3 such as in electronics, 4,5 optoelectronics, 6 photovoltaics and dye sensitized solar cells, 7 photocatalysis, 8 rechargeable lithium ion batteries, [9][10][11] gas sensors, 12,13 and electrocatalysis. 14 Due to its immense significance in nanotechnology, a large number of research reports have already appeared and innumerable methods are available in literature for its synthesis.…”

Enhanced Reactant Activation and Transformation for Efficient Photocatalytic Acetone Degradation on SnO2 via Hf Doping

“…[26] As one of the most crucial methods to enhance the photocatalytic ability of SnO 2 , the strategy of metal elemental doping on SnO 2 is considered as an desirable strategy which can modify the electronic structures, restrain the recombination electron-hole pairs and ulteriorly strengthen its photocatalytic ability. [31,32] Although the modification of SnO 2 has utilized the way of doping metal elements, [33][34][35] the mechanisms of charge separation as well as transfer and photocatalytic acetone oxidation pathways have not been revealed, which need a comprehensive and systematic investigation.…”

Zn- and Ti-Doped SnO2 for Enhanced Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide

“…Other works include the introduction of N into the SnO 2 lattice [ 16 ] and the co-doping with Cu and S [ 17 ]. To the best of our knowledge, no reports on the doping of SnO 2 with Zn and Ti elements for CO 2 RR are available, although it was used for other applications, including optics [ 18 ], electronics [ 18 ], and widely in gas sensing [ 19 ]. Ti-doped SnO 2 was employed as photocatalyst, demonstrating enhanced activity for degradation of organic dyes, due to reduced recombination of the electron-hole pairs and expanded range of light absorption [ 20 ].…”