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Influence of potassium permanganate on the anisotropic growth and enhanced UV emission of ZnO nanostructures using hydrothermal process for optoelectronic applications

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Abstract

The effect of in situ addition of potassium permanganate (KMnO4) in controlling morphology, composition, structural and optical properties of the ZnO nanostructures prepared by hydrothermal technique has been investigated. The influence of synthesis conditions on the growth of ZnO nanorods was meticulously studied by field-emission scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffractometer, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM. It is demonstrated that the KMnO4 concentration has great influence on the morphology and on the alignment of ZnO nanorods. Further the optical properties of nanostructures were investigated by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and ultraviolet–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The PL spectrum divulged a continuous suppression of defect-related broadband emission by increasing the concentration of the KMnO4, which produced the quenching of surface defects present in the nanorods. The intensity ratio of the peaks corresponding to near-band emission (NBE) to that of deep-level emission of the KMnO4-modified ZnO nanorods was found to increase by eightfold of magnitude. Further it must be noted that nearly 17-fold enhancement in the PL emission of the peak corresponding to NBE was observed in KMnO4-modified ZnO compared to the ZnO grown without any additive. The I–V plot showed dependence of current values under dark and illumination over the amount of KMnO4 added during the growth stage.

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Acknowledgments

One of the authors T. D. is grateful to FESEM, XRD, and PL facilities equipped at the Sophisticated Instrument Centre, IIT Indore.T. D. would further like to thank the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), India, for providing the Teaching Assistantship (TA). Authors V. S. and I. A. P. would like to thank Director of IIT Indore for providing constant support and appreciation. The authors also acknowledge DST:JSPS S&T cooperation project (DST/INT/JSPS/P-176/2014) for supporting the travel to Kyushu University. Authors would further like to acknowledge Dr. Pankaj R Sagdeo for allowing the usage of UV Visible DRS facility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular and Nanoelectronics Research Group (MNRG), Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Indore, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

    Tejendra Dixit, Anubha Bilgaiyan & Vipul Singh

  2. Mechatronics and Instrumentation Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Indore, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

    I. A. Palani

  3. Centre of Material Science and Engineering, IIT Indore, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

    I. A. Palani & Vipul Singh

  4. Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    D. Nakamura & T. Okada

Authors
  1. Tejendra Dixit
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  2. Anubha Bilgaiyan
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  3. I. A. Palani
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  4. D. Nakamura
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  5. T. Okada
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  6. Vipul Singh
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Correspondence to Tejendra Dixit.

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Dixit, T., Bilgaiyan, A., Palani, I.A. et al. Influence of potassium permanganate on the anisotropic growth and enhanced UV emission of ZnO nanostructures using hydrothermal process for optoelectronic applications. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 75, 693–702 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-015-3741-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-015-3741-1

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