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Enhanced blue-green emission and ethanol sensing of Co-doped ZnO nanocrystals prepared by a solvothermal route

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Abstract

In this paper, we report the structure, optical, and gas-sensing properties of Co-doped ZnO nanocrystals prepared by a simple solvothermal route. The red-shift of the band-gap edge is attributed to a merging of donor and conduction bands due to Co doping. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra were used to study the dependence of doping on the deep-level emission, which show obvious enhanced blue-green emission after Co doping. Gas sensors were prepared and tested for the detection of C2H5OH in air. It is found that the Co-doped nanocrystals have a significantly better sensing performance than pure ZnO, which is comparable to the Au-functionalized ZnO sensors. We provide a possible explanation in terms of the sensing mechanism of the surface reaction process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Jin Li, Huiqing Fan, Xiaohua Jia, Weiwei Yang & Pinyang Fang

Authors
  1. Jin Li
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  2. Huiqing Fan
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  3. Xiaohua Jia
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  4. Weiwei Yang
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  5. Pinyang Fang
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Correspondence to Huiqing Fan.

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Li, J., Fan, H., Jia, X. et al. Enhanced blue-green emission and ethanol sensing of Co-doped ZnO nanocrystals prepared by a solvothermal route. Appl. Phys. A 98, 537–542 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-009-5489-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-009-5489-3

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