Fabrication and Spectral Properties of Zinc Zirconate Nanorod Composites by Sol-Gel Method for Optical Applications: Effect of Chloride and Oxychloride Precursors and Sintering Temperature on Band Gap

Abstract

Zinc zirconate composite nanorods (ZZCN) having about 75 nm diameters were synthesized via a sol-gel reaction of equimolar of zinc chloride and zirconium oxychloride, in the presence of nitric acid and acetyl acetone. The as-prepared zinc zirconate composite nanorods were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), diffuse reflectance (DRS), thermoanalytical measurements (TG-DTG), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX). The effect of precursor nature and sintering temperature on physicochemical and optical properties of ZZCN species were studied. The results showed that ZZCN nanorods have lengths of about 4 μm. The XRD analysis reveals that the synthesized ZZCN nanorods were formed. The influence of process parameters involves precursor materials and the calcination temperature on the optical properties was evaluated. The results indicated that composite formation was a practical method to adjust the optical properties of nanostructures. Optical properties of the zinc zirconate nanocomposite samples were studied by UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra. Optical parameters such as absorption coefficient were measured from reflection spectra by intercept method. The results showed the band gap to be 3.01 eV.

Keywords:

• optical application
• nanocomposite
• zinc zirconate
• oxychloride precursors

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to thank the University of Isfahan for financially supporting this work.