Crystal structure analysis of Lanthanum Orthoferrite doped Zirconium with sol-gel method for solar cell candidate

Abstract

Abstract Lanthanum Orthoferrite (LaFeO3) is one of the perovskite material which has been studied as a candidate for solar cells. Perovskite doped at site-A and site B was expected to increase efficiency in its application as a solar cell. Zirconium as doping at site-B on LaFeO3 used to reduce the size of crystals with nano size. Therefore, this research has synthesized perovskite lanthanum orthoferrite doped zirconium at site-B (LaFe1-xZrxO3 with x=0.075, 0.1 and 0.15) by the sol-gel method and it has not been studied before. The precursors for these materials are lanthanum Oxide (La2O3), Zirconium (IV) chloride octahydrate (Cl2H12O9Zr), iron nitrate nonahydrate (Fe (NO3)3.9H2O). LaFeZrO3 powder was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) to test the crystal structure properties. The results say that the sample has an orthorhombic structure with Pnma space group. The XRD data has been refined and shows that the lattice parameters for 0.075, 0.1 and 0.15 increase with increasing zirconium concentration and crystal size of LaFeZrO3 decreasing and showing nanosize. Nanosize crystals can maximize the absorption of dyes and it can increase the efficiency of solar cells.