Synthesis of Copper Oxide Nanoparticles by Activated Reactive Evaporation Method

Abstract

The present study reviews various synthesis techniques for preparing single-phase Cu₂O nanoparticles. The ‘nanoparticle route’ results in the growth stable semiconductor materials via the size-induced stabilization at nanodimension. In comparison to other techniques, activated reactive evaporation (ARE) method has an excellent parametric control to obtain the nanoparticles in a wide size range. The size-dependent optical, structural and electronic properties of Cu₂O nanoparticles prepared by ARE method have been discussed in detail. Increase in ionic nature of the Cu₂O lattice and a surface-modified thin CuO shell surrounded Cu₂O core stabilizes the Cu₂O phase. High-energy heavy ion irradiation has been used to modify the nanocrystalline characteristics of the Cu₂O nanophase without destroying nanoparticle nature. These results show that Cu₂O nanoparticles based Schottky and heterojunction will be stable to yield better photovoltaic performance.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

B R Mehta

Bodh Raj Mehta was born on 20 March 1956 in Tanda (Punjab). He received his doctorate degree from IIT Delhi (1985) after obtaining MTech in Solid State Materials (1979) from IIT Delhi and MSc in Physics (1977) from Punjabi University Patiala. He joined the Physics Department in 1985 and is currently Associate Professor in the same department. He has been involved in the research on nanoparticles, diamond and diamond like carbon thin films, and various optical, electronic and solar cell materials and devices. The current research activities are focused towards the fabrication of semiconductor nanoparticle structures using chemical and thin film processing routes and to study the structural, optical and electron transport properties of nanoparticle structures. He is the principal investigator of many projects on nanomaterials sponsored by governmental funding agencies and industry. He has more than 65 journal and conference papers to his credit; supervised two PhD students and twenty MTech. students. He is the recipient of DAAD fellowship for the year 1999. He has an international collaborative project on nanoparticles with University of Duisburg, Germany. He has worked as Visiting Scientist-at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (1989–90), as Guest Scientist at University of Saarbrucken, Germany (1999) and as Guest Professor at University of Duisburg, Germany (2000, 2001, 2002).

B Balamurugan

Balasubramanian Balamurugan born on 03 February 1974 obtained his MTech (Solid State Materials) in 1997 and presently pursuing PhD from IIT Delhi. His topic of research is “Synthesis, structure and material properties of copper oxide and copper carbide nanoparticle films”. His main areas of interest include synthesis of novel phases via nanoparticle route for optoelectronic applications and size-induced structural transition and optical properties of semiconductor nanoparticles.