Composition, Morphology, and Structure of Ultrafine ZnS–ZnO Powders Alloyed with Transition Metal Oxides

Abstract—Ultrafine ZnO–ZnS powder with d-metal oxide additions, namely, V₂O₅, MnO, Fe₂O₃, CoO, NiO, and CuO are studied. The alloying of the ZnO–ZnS system with d metals changes the morphology of the synthesized powders. The particle size distribution obeys a lognormal law. An addition of d metal oxide upon the synthesis of ZnO–ZnS composite shifts the maximum of the particle-size distribution to the larger sizes. The more probable particle size in the samples alloyed with iron and cobalt (530 nm) exceeds that of unalloyed samples (320 nm) by more than 1.6 times. All the synthesized samples are found to be characterized by excess oxygen. The zinc, sulfur, and oxygen contents in the unalloyed ZnO–ZnS compositions is 48.0, 12.8, and 39.2 at %, respectively. The synthesis of the ZnO–ZnS composition together with transition metal oxides does not change the hexagonal and cubic symmetry of zinc sulfide and hexagonal symmetry of the zinc oxide. The presence of iron leads to an increase in the coherent domain size of the ZnS phase.