Synthesis, optical and electrical properties of Mn doped ZnO nanoparticles

In this paper, we are interested to study the structural optical and electrical properties of Zn_1−xMn_xO (\(0\le x\le 0.03\)) nanoparticles (Nps). The Nps were synthesized by the co-precipitation method. X-ray diffraction patterns reveal the formation of a single-phase hexagonal wurtzite-type ZnO structure for all samples. Moreover, the Photoluminescence emission spectra for the entire samples confirm the presence of various defect centers inside the doped ZnO wurtzite nanostructure. The electrical measurements were performed in the 40–10 MHz frequency range and 460–620 K temperature intervals. It is revealed that the DC conductivity increases with temperature which follows the Arrhenius law. Besides, The variation of DC conductivity with Mn content shows gradual decrease which is explained by formation of grain boundary defect barrier. It is noted that, the E_a values are found to increase with the increase in Mn concentration. The AC conductivity curves were analyzed by Jonscher power law. The obtained results are discussed in terms of the correlated barrier hopping model.