Controlling the Growth of Zinc Oxide/ Polyaniline Nanocomposites on Platinum-Coated Substrate for Possible Solar Cell Applications

Abstract

We report on the growth of zinc oxide/polyaniline (ZnO/PANI) nanocomposites deposited on platinum (Pt)–coated glass substrate via chemical bath deposition and dip–casting technique is reported. Scanning electron micrographs of the nanocomposites revealed that etching of ZnO nanorods takes place during growth which turn into plate–like and distorted nanostructures. We found out that increasing the concentration of NH4OH triggered increase in nanostructure diameter. The surface morphology of nanocomposites significantly changed as the molar concentration of NH4OH precursor varies. Fast fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results showed the interaction of ZnO and PANI by observing the shift of peaks to the higher wavenumbers. The measured optical band gap of the nanocomposites are in good aggreement with the reported values. This result indicates that the grown ZnO/PANI nanocomposites is a good material for solar cell device.