Sumetha Suwanboon, Suchada Chukamnerd, and Utsanee Anglong

pp. 1563 - 1570

Abstract

Nanocrystalline ZnO powders have been synthesized by using zinc acetate dihydrate and PVP as starting materials. The calcined powders in air at 600°C for 1 hour have been characterized by XRD, indexing the wurtzite or hexagonal structure with the smallest crystallite size of ~ 44.76 nm, and lattice parameters a and c of 0.3249 and 0.5204 nm, respectively at 3x10^-4 M PVP. The SEM images show that the morphology has been changed from plate-like to small rod shape when adding PVP to solutions and the morphology has tended to be monosized at higher PVP concentration. The smallest grain sizes of ZnO powders are ~ 130 nm at 3x10^-4 M PVP. The optical band gap of all ZnO powders in this study varied between 3.218-3.229 eV.