Structural, optical and ferroelectric properties of V doped ZnO

Abstract

Present work reports the structural, optical and ferroelectric properties of vanadium doped ZnO samples synthesized via solid state reaction method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) study confirms the presence of hexagonal wurtzite phase and the slight changes in lattice parameters is observed after V doping in host ZnO and impurity oxide of ZnV2O6. Presence of E1 and E2 modes in Raman spectroscopy of V doped ZnO indicates the stability of the wurtzite structure of ZnO, which is consistent with the XRD results. UV–Vis spectroscopy results show decrease in band gap of ZnO from 3.35 to 3.24 eV for 1 % V doped sample, whereas it increases with the V doping and increase in the impurity of ZnV2O6. Furthermore, it is observed that the ferroelectric polarisation of ZnO improves by V doping. Above results show that one need to consider the presence of ZnO in composite form of oxides of Zn and V and not as a pure V doped ZnO system.