https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04312-7
Regular Article
Study of Zn1−2xNixFexO thin films coated on glass by sol–gel spin-coating method for DMS materials
1
ISITCOM, University of Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia
2
College of Sciences, University of Hafr Al-Batin, Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia
3
UMR7504 CNRS-UDS, Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg (IPCMS), BP 43, 23 rue du Loess, 67034, Strasbourg Cedex 2, France
Received:
25
March
2023
Accepted:
24
July
2023
Published online:
15
August
2023
In this paper, un-, Fe-, Ni- and (Fe + Ni)-doped ZnO layers were grown on transparent glass substrates by sol–gel process using the spin-coating technique. Investigations based on different techniques such as XRD, SEM, UV–visible spectroscopy, PL and VSM were performed to analyze the samples. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed the formation of hexagonal structure corresponding to the wurtzite phase of all samples without any secondary phases present in the spectra. The average crystallite size is in 36–80 nm range. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigation of the layers reveals that following doping, the ZnO grain sizes tend to increase. UV–visible shows red shift in peak wavelength. These findings are in line with the grain size dependence after doping obtained from XRD. Using transmittance spectra, the optical energy bandgap was found 3.29, 3.17, 3.11 and 3.15 eV of un-, Fe-, Ni- and (Ni + Fe)-doped ZnO, respectively. Un-doped ZnO has the highest intensity in near-band-edge emission, according to photoluminescence (PL) spectra, but after Ni and Fe doping, a slight redshift is observed with a strong violet (423 nm) and blue (475 nm) emission peaks, respectively. Hence, for Zn1−2xNixFexO (x = 0.01 and 0.03 mol%) thin films, the ensuing emission properties make them appropriate as lighting sources. Consequently, it is anticipated that full-color display devices would be possible. Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) measurements at room temperature are discovered to be hysteretic, indicating room temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) and implying the Curie temperature is greater than 300 K. The area under the hysteresis loop of Zn1−2xNixFexO (x = 0.01 and 0.03 mol%) decreases, indicating low hysteresis loss. The present findings are suitable for spintronic applications.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
