Vanadium Doped ZnS Nanoparticles: Effect of Vanadium Concentration on Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties

Abstract

Vanadium (V) doped zinc sulfide (ZnS) nanoparticles have been synthesized in the doping concentration of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1 wt% by chemical co-precipitation method, where de-ionized water was used as solvent and the precursors were Zn(CH3COO)2⋅2H2O, Na2S and V2O5. The synthesized nanoparticles have been characterized by XRD, UV–Vis spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy and precision impedance analyzer (PIA). XRD studies revealed that all the samples exhibit cubic structure and confirmed the incorporation of V into ZnS lattice. The calculated average crystallite size was varied in the range of 2.16–2.82 nm. The red shifting of the absorption edge was observed from the UV–Vis study and the direct optical band gap (Eg) was decreased from 3.63 to 3.35 eV with increasing the doping concentrations. The various vibrational modes were observed by the FTIR spectroscopy. The characteristic vibrational peaks were found near at 666, 615 and 478 cm−1. The PIA study showed that frequency dependent dielectric constant, loss tangent and ac resistivity were high at the lower frequency, while the ac conductivity was low at higher frequency. The bandgap tuning behavior of ZnS nanoparticles with V-doping concentrations may find interesting applications in optoelectronic devices.