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Structural and optical properties of Zn-deficient ZnGa2O4 nanoparticles hydrothermally synthesized at low temperature by rapid heating using microwaves

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Abstract

Wide-bandgap ZnGa2O4 (ZGO) semiconductor nanoparticles with oxygen vacancies were prepared by a hydrothermal method via microwave heating at temperatures less than 120 °C using a domestic microwave with an irradiation time as short as 150 s. The effect of pH of the precursor solution on the structural and optical properties of the ZnGa2O4 nanoparticles was investigated. The solution pH hardly affected the ZnGa2O4 particle size; the sizes remained almost unchanged in the range from 4.98 ± 0.09 to 6.32 ± 0.07 nm as pH was varied between 5.2 and 7.0. However, with decreasing solution pH, the number of oxygen vacancies increased owing to the generation of zinc deficiencies in the ZnGa2O4 nanoparticles. Consequently, the bandgap increased with decreasing pH, reaching a maximum of 4.78 eV at pH 5.2, when the ZnO/Ga2O3 molar ratio in the nanoparticles was the lowest (= 0.18). Moreover, the photoluminescence intensity also increased with decreasing pH, without any spectral shift. The photoluminescence was not dominated by the quantum size effect, but by the number of oxygen vacancies. The rapid and low-temperature microwave-based synthesis strategy of ZnGa2O4 nanophosphors developed in this study is expected to provide an energy-saving method for producing nanoparticles with controlled optical properties, contributing to future optoelectronic device applications.

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The data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Sample analysis was performed by Materials Analysis Station, National Institute for Materials Science (Japan). This work was partially supported by the Iketani Science and Technology Foundation (0321093-A) and the Research Institute for Science and Technology of Tokyo Denki University (Grant Number Q21K-04).

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Iketani Science and Technology Foundation (0321093-A) and the Research Institute for Science and Technology of Tokyo Denki University (Grant Number Q21K-04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Tokyo Denki University, Hiki-gun, Hatoyama, Saitama, 350-0394, Japan

    Satoshi Ishii, Satoru Suzuki & Chengwei Kang

  2. Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu City, 501-1193, Japan

    Michiyuki Yoshida

  3. National Institute for Materials Science, 1-2-1 Sengen, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0047, Japan

    Takayuki Nakane, Minako Nakayama & Takashi Naka

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  1. Satoshi Ishii
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, UV–vis, and PL measurements were performed by SI, SS, and CK. XRD measurement was performed by MN and TN. TEM observation was performed by MY. The data analysis was performed by SI, SS, and CK. The first draft of the manuscript was written by SI. TN: reviewed and edited the manuscript, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Satoshi Ishii.

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Ishii, S., Suzuki, S., Kang, C. et al. Structural and optical properties of Zn-deficient ZnGa2O4 nanoparticles hydrothermally synthesized at low temperature by rapid heating using microwaves. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 15254–15262 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08444-x

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