Evaluation of the effect of Ag- doping ZnO microstructure on optical and structural properties and application in photocatalytic properties

Abstract

The chemical bath deposition technique was successful in producing silver-doped ZnO thin films. On the glass substrates, pure and silver-doped ZnO thin films have been deposited. By using a variety of sophisticated techniques, including X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Field emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), UV-vis spectrophotometer, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, the generated pure and Ag-doped ZnO thin films were studied. According to X-ray analysis, Ag-doped ZnO crystallized as a hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preference for growth in the (002) planes, the pure and Ag-doped ZnO's hexagonal wurtzite structures provided evidence for the microparticles' luminescent characteristics. The analysis of the methylene blue degradation revealed that the best photocatalytic response was displayed by the doped ZnO thin film. All thin films' optical bandgaps were broad, and they generally decrease after more doping, it was possible to determine that the particles were elliptical and rod-shaped and that their diameters were on the order of micrometers. for both the doped and pure ZnO microparticles were seen to exist. The outcome shows that the produced microparticles' average grain diameter was determined to be (15,20.5,14.5) um, with noteworthy band gaps of 3.39,3.34 eV, and 3.08 eV, respectively.