Investigation of physicochemical characteristics of Dy 3+ modified ZnO nanoparticles

• Published in: Physica scripta 2024-08, Vol.99 (8), p.85957
• Main Authors: Kumar, Dinesh, Singh, Sunder Pal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0031-8949; 1402-4896
• DOI: 10.1088/1402-4896/ad5f65

In this report, pristine and Dy 3+ modified ZnO nanoparticles [Zn (1-x) Dy x O NPs, where x = 0, 0.05, and 0.10] were synthesized using the sol–gel route, and their physicochemical characteristics were investigated. x-ray diffractograms of all the compositions possess P 6 3 m c space group depicting hexagonal crystallinity with wurtzite-type crystal structure with no signature of impurities as confirmed using the Rietveld refinement technique. The granular microstructure displayed grain growth with Dy 3+ incorporation in the ZnO crystal framework and an increment in average grain size was found to be 22.83 nm for x = 0 to 36.34 nm. The optical energy band gap also increased from 3.35 eV to 3.88 eV with Dy 3+ doping in the host ZnO. Dy 3+ substitution inhibits the conduction in ZnO and improves the resistivity (36 Ωcm–79 Ωcm) as carrier concentration diminishes from 7.36 × 10 16 cm −3 to 4.23 × 10 16 cm −3 . Similarly, the mean free path length for ZnO and Dy 3+ doped ZnO NPs declines from 0.0301 nm to 0.0198 nm. Dielectric properties of all the compositions were investigated using an LCR impedance analyzer and it was observed that Dy 3+ substitution enhances the value of the dielectric constant from 32 to 91 with a low tangent loss at 50 Hz.