Muhammad Ali Shar

Structural and optical properties of pure and Ag doped ZnO thin films obtained by sol gel spin coating technique

Abstract We have investigated the influence of Ag doping on zinc oxide thin films. Pure and Ag doped, preferentially oriented transparent zinc oxide thin films were prepared by sol gel technique on a glass substrate using diethyl amine as a stabilizer. The X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the films with hexagonal wurtzite type structure were polycrystalline in nature with a preferred grain orientation in the 101 direction. The crystallite sizes decreased from 34 nm to 27 nm after silver doping. Both photoluminescence and optical transmission measurements showed that the band gap increased after the Ag doping. The structure and optical characterization studies clearly indicated the incorporation of Ag in ZnO. Hence, the observed increase in the optical band gap and decrease in crystallite size can be directly attributed to the effect of Ag ion incorporation into the ZnO lattice.

Phase Pure Synthesis and Morphology Dependent Magnetization in Mn Doped ZnO Nanostructures

Zn0.95Mn0.05O nanostructures were synthesized using sol gel derived autocombustion technique. As-burnt samples were thermally annealed at different temperatures (400, 600, and 800°C) for 8 hours to investigate their effect on structural morphology and magnetic behavior. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopic studies demonstrated the improvement in crystallinity of phase pure wurtzite structure of Mn doped ZnO with variation of annealing temperature. Energy dispersive X-ray elemental compositional analysis confirmed the exact nominal compositions of the reactants. Electrical resistivity measurements were performed with variation in temperature, which depicted the semiconducting nature similar to parent ZnO after 5 at% Mn doping. Magnetic measurements by superconducting quantum interference device detected an enhanced trend of ferromagnetic interactions in thermally annealed compositions attributed to the improved structural morphology and crystalline refinement process.

Structural, Morphological, and Magnetic Characterization of Sol-Gel Synthesized MnCuZn Ferrites

Manganese copper ferrites belong to a family of ferrites with specific importance due to their high permeability values and low losses at low frequencies. In this paper, a series of ferrite samples has been synthesized using a novel and low cost sol-gel autocombustion route in order to systematically investigate the structural, compositional, morphological, and magnetic properties when zinc is substituted by copper in the series. X-ray diffraction reveals that all the samples have characteristic cubic spinel structure. The effect of zinc substitution at the copper site on the chemical bonding of the ferrite samples was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis was performed to determine the homogeneity and stoichiometric composition of elements present in the samples. Nanosized, uniformly shaped grains were evident from the images obtained using a scanning electron microscopy, which indirectly confirms the significance of the autocombustion synthesis technique employed in this paper. Magnetic properties determined using a vibrating sample magnetometer exhibited that zinc substitution could enhance the saturation magnetization of the samples, attributed to the substitution of a paramagnetic element (zinc) by a diamagnetic one (copper).

Thermal Treatment Effect on Catalytic Activity of Au/TiO2 for CO Oxidation

A novel and well-organized study for the synthesis and enhanced catalytic activity of Au/TiO2 catalysts has been developed. A momentous improvement in the catalytic activity of Au/TiO2 in CO oxidation and preferential oxidation reaction by thermal treatment has been studied. Au/TiO2 catalyst (Au (1 wt.%) supported on TiO2) was prepared by conventional deposition-precipitation method with NaOH followed by washing, drying and calcination in air at 400 °C for 4 h. Thermal treatment of Au/TiO2 was performed at 450 °C under 0.05 mTorr. The activity of the catalysts has been examined in the reaction of CO oxidation and preferential oxidation (PROX) at 25-250 °C. The catalytic performance was found to be strongly affected by thermal treatment of the prepared catalyst prior to the reaction. Heat treatment after Au deposition has a positive effect on the CO oxidation performance. This is attributed to the introduction of a stronger interaction between the oxide and Au which improves the catalytic activity.