Synthesis, characterization and study of band gap variations of vanadium doped indium oxide nanoparticles

In this study, effects of vanadium doping in crystal lattice structure of indium oxide (In₂O₃) were investigated. Indium oxide nanoparticles with different amounts of dopant concentrations were fabricated by a facile and cost effective method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed the formation of cubic phase for doped and undoped samples. It was observed that the lattice parameters of doped samples were decreased respect to the pure indium oxide, but the crystallite sizes and the particles' sizes of doped samples were increased in result of substitution of vanadium in crystal lattice of In₂O₃. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of samples showed that all samples have spherical shapes, and their distribution sizes are between 10 and 70 nm. It was found that the average sizes of nanoparticles were increased linearly with the amounts of dopant concentration. A red shift was founded in the band gap of vanadium doped samples respect to pure In₂O₃. The maximum of the band gap shift was observed for samples with 0.025 M concentration of dopant. Based on impedance spectroscopy data, it was found that impedances of samples are increased by increasing of dopant concentration for all frequencies which were tested in this study.