Enhancing the Optical, Electrical and Dielectric Properties of Zno Nanopowders Through Fe/Al Co-Doping Effect for Optoelectronic Applications

In the current paper, undoped ZnO and co-doped Zn (0.99-x) Fe 0.01 Al x O (x = 0.01, 0.03 and 0.05) were effectively prepared by the co-precipitation process. The structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties were investigated in order to explore the effect of Al co-doping concentration on the various physical properties of ZnO nanopowders. Besides, the structural analysis revealed the formation of the hexagonal wurtzite structure of all the powdered compositions. The crystallite size was found to decline with Fe and Al incorporation into ZnO crystal lattice. An additional peak attributed to the secondary phase Al was also noted for the Zn 0.94 Fe 0.01 Al 0.05 O sample. Moreover, the morphological study suggested the change in the morphology of ZnO nanopowders with the higher Al co-doping concentration and proved the formation of the secondary phase Al for the Zn 0.94 Fe 0.01 Al 0.05 O composition. Concerning the optical properties, it demonstrated that the optical band gap energy was found to decline with increasing Al co-doping concentration. An increasing trend of the Urbach energy was noted under Fe/Al co-doping effect. Furthermore, the electrical and dielectric characterizations were performed in the same range of frequency and temperature. The obtained results showed that the dielectric constant was gradually increased with the rise of Al concentration. The electrical conductivity of ZnO nanopowdered compositions was also enhanced under the incorporation of Al into the ZnO host matrix. This paper enhances the understanding of optical and electrical properties of Fe/Al co-doped ZnO nanopowders for optoelectronic applications.