The Effect of Cu₂O Synthesis Method on its Optical Properties

Abstract

Cuprous Oxide (Cu2O) is a semiconductor material with excellent photocatalytic properties, a broad range of applications, low fabrication costs, and is non-toxic. We concentrated on the impact of two different synthesis methods in this study. Cu2O synthesis was carried out using two different techniques, which are chemical deposition and hot-soap method. The chemical deposition (CD) method used a copper sulfate pentahydrate precursor in a room temperature reaction. Hot-soap (HS) method employed copper acetylacetonate with reaction at higher temperature. The X-Ray Diffraction analysis reveals a sharp peak with a size of 53.8 nm and a broaden peak with a size of 26.24 nm for particles synthesized by (Cu2O-CD) and (Cu2O-HS), respectively. Using the Tauc Plot method, the band gap of Cu2O-HS is estimated to be 2.65 eV and that of Cu2O-CD to be 1.7 eV. Cu2O-HS emits a noticeable photoluminescence peak at 425 nm, whereas Cu2O-CD emits no peaks in photoluminescence spectra analysis. These findings indicate that Cu2O-HS has a high potential for use in photocatalytic mechanisms.