Studies on the Effect of High Energy Ball Milling On the Structural, Electrical and Magnetic Properties of Some Normal Spinets in the Ultrafine Regime

The present work is an attempt to understand the characteristics of high energy ball milling on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of some normal spinets in the ultra fine regime, Magnetism and magnetic materials have been a fascinating subject for the mankind ever since the discovery of lodestone. Since then, man has been applying this principle of magnetism to build devices for various applications. Magnetism can be classified broadly into five categories. They are diamagnetic, paramagnetic, ferromagnetic antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic. Of these, ferro and ferri magnetic materials assume great commercial importance due to their unique properties like appropriate magnetic characteristics, high resistivity and low eddy current losses. The emergence of nanoscience and nanotechnology during the last decade had its impact in the field of magnetism and magnetic materials too. Now, it is common knowledge that materials synthesized in the nanoregime exhibit novel and superlative properties with respect to their coarser sized counterparts in the micron regime. These studies reveal that dielectric properties can be varied appreciably by high-energy ball milling in nanosized zinc ferrites produced by coprecipitation method. A semi conducting behaviour was observed in these materials with the Oxygen vacancies acting as the main charge carrier for conduction, which was produced at the time of coprecipitation and milling. Thus through this study, it was possible to successfully investigate the finite size effects on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of normal spinels in the ultra fine regime

Effect of annealing on the spectral and nonlinear optical characteristics of thin films of nano-ZnO

The annealing effect on the spectral and nonlinear optical NLO characteristics of ZnO thin films deposited on quartz substrates by sol-gel process is investigated. As the annealing temperature increases from 300–1050 °C, there is a decrease in the band gap, which indicates the changes of the interface of ZnO. ZnO is reported to show two emission bands, an ultraviolet UV emission band and another in the green region. The intensity of the UV peak remains the same while the intensity of the visible peak increases with increase in annealing temperature. The role of oxygen in ZnO thin films during the annealing process is important to the change in optical properties. The mechanism of the luminescence suggests that UV luminescence of ZnO thin films is related to the transition from conduction band edge to valence band, and green luminescence is caused by the transition from deep donor level to valence band due to oxygen vacancies. The NLO response of these samples is studied using nanosecond laser pulses at off-resonance wavelengths. The nonlinear absorption coefficient increases from 2.9 ×10−6 to 1.0 ×10−4 m/W when the annealing temperature is increased from 300 to 1050 °C, mainly due to the enhancement of interfacial state and exciton oscillator strength. The third order optical susceptibility x(3) increases with increase in annealing temperature (T) within the range of our investigations. In the weak confinement regime, T2.4 dependence of x(3) is obtained for ZnO thin films. The role of annealing temperature on the optical limiting response is also studied.

Size dependent fluorescence spectroscopy of nanocolloids of ZnO

In this article we present size dependent spectroscopic observations of nanocolloids of ZnO. ZnO is reported to show two emission bands, an ultraviolet (UV) emission band and another in the green region. Apart from the known band gap 380 nm and impurity 530 nm emissions, we have found some peculiar features in the fluorescence spectra that are consistent with the nanoparticle size distribution. Results show that additional emissions at 420 and 490 nm are developed with particle size. The origin of the visible band emission is discussed. The mechanism of the luminescence suggests that UV luminescence of ZnO colloid is related to the transition from conduction band edge to valence band, and visible luminescence is caused by the transition from deep donor level to valence band due to oxygen vacancies and by the transition from conduction band to deep acceptor level due to impurities and defect states. A correlation analysis between the particle size and spectroscopic observations is also discussed.

Photoluminescence studies of spray pyrolytically grown nanostructured tin oxide semiconductor thin films on glass substrates

SnO2 nanocrystalline thin films were deposited on glass substrates by the spray pyrolysis technique in air atmosphere at 375, 400, 425, 450 and 500 ◦C substrate temperatures. The obtained films were characterized by using XRD. The room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra of these films have near band edge (NBE) and deep level emission under the excitation of 325 nm radiation. NBE PL peak intensity decreased consistently with temperatures for samples prepared at 400, 450 and 500 ◦C, while a sudden reduction in intensity is observed for the sample prepared at 425 ◦C. A similar effect was observed for the optical transmittance spectra. These effects can be explained on the basis of the change in population of oxygen vacancies as indicated by the change in a values