Effect of grain size on optical properties of iron oxide nanoparticles

In the present paper, iron oxide nanoparticles are successfully synthesized by the sol-gel method. The grain size is varied by sintering the nanoparticles at different temperature 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800 °C. Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) image shows that the grains are uniformly distributed. The grain size increases from 15 nm to 35 nm with increasing the sintering temperature (400-800 °C). Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis shows that Fe is present in the stoichiometric ratio in all the synthesized samples. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra show that Fe-O stretching peaks appears at ∼495 cm⁻¹. The value of energy band gap are found 2.75, 2.67, 2.62, 2.59, and 2.57 eV for the samples sintered at 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800 °C respectively. Therefore, the decrease in band gap with increasing the temperature has been observed. In this paper, the structural and optical properties have been explained on the basis of variation in the grain size with the temperature. The present studied samples more widely used in gas sensors and as catalysts.