Structural, dielectric and optical investigation of chemically synthesized Ag-doped ZnO nanoparticles composites

The sol–gel technique was used in the chemical synthesis and characterizations based on structural, morphological, optical and electrical studies of pure and Ag-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy Dispersive X-ray spectrometry, transmission electron microscope, ultraviolet spectroscopy, photoluminescence and FT-IR analysis were used to perform the characterization of the morphological analysis, optical studies, phase purity and crystalline size. The Powder X-ray diffraction results proved polycrystalline nature of ZnO with a hexagonal wurtzite structure. Debye-Scherrer’s formula was used to evaluate the average crystallite size of pure and Ag-doped ZnO. Their values have been determined to be 14 and 18 nm respectively. To examine the various functional groups FTIR was utilized. The unique aggregation of the particles was stated by the scanning electron microscopy investigation and transmission electron microscope analysis was used to substantiate the nanosphere formation. Here, the estimated optical band gap value for pure and Ag-doped ZnO nanoparticles was 3.22 and 3.17 eV, respectively. UV–visible spectroscopy was used to perform this process. Photoluminescence studies have proved the Ag-doped ZnO sample of the blue shift emission bands. At different frequencies and temperatures, under specific conditions, the dielectric properties like dielectric constant, dielectric loss and AC conductivity of Ag-doped ZnO nanoparticles were analyzed.