Characterization and optoelectronics investigations of polymer directed semiconductor ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract

In this research paper, we have evaluated the optical properties of polymer directed semiconductor ZnO nanoparticles prepared through the precipitation route. In this work, polymer is synthesized with the help of condensation reaction between polymer amine and aldehyde. The formation of imine linkage in polymer framework is confirmed with spectroscopic methods including FTIR spectroscopy. The polymer is used to control the size and shape of ZnO and the final polymer coated ZnO nanoparticles is characterized with techniques like XRD, photoluminescence, UV-vis absorption and FTIR spectroscopy. The capping with polymer led to effective modification of ZnO nanoparticles surface, which results in enhancement of the UV luminescence and distinctly quenched the defect linked green luminescence in the photoluminescence spectra. It has been investigated that the annealing time (reflux time) of polymer directed ZnO nanoparticles has shown a significant effect on the optical properties of the parent ZnO nanoparticles. However, due to the process of quantum confinement effect the UV-vis absorption spectra shows marked blue shift in UV region for polymer based ZnO nanoparticles implying that polymer based ZnO nanoparticles were smaller in size which absorbs at lower wavelength.