Sol–Gel Synthesis of Dy Co-Doped ZnO:V Nanoparticles for Optoelectronic Applications

Abstract

In this paper, Dy co-doped ZnO:V1% was prepared using the sol–gel process. We studied the impact of doping on the physical properties of the synthesized nanoparticles. In our synthetic approach, under an esterification reaction the release of water was carried out slowly, and this step was followed by drying beyond the critical point of ethanol then by calcination in air at 500 °C for 2 h. The structural and morphological studies show the presence of wurtzite structure with an average crystallite size of about 30 nm. In addition, no secondary phase was detected, which shows that the doping elements reacted with the matrix. The reflectance measurements show that by increasing the doping concentration the energy of the band gap energy decreases. Photoluminescence (PL) indicates the presence of two emission bands situated at around 481 nm and 577 nm linked to doping with Dy.