Synthesis and characterization of ruthenium-doped CdO nanoparticle and its n-RuCdO/p-Si junction diode application

In the present work, Ru doped CdO nanoparticles were prepared with different doping concentrations by microwave irradiation technique for P-N junction diode application. The effect of doping agent on the CdO nanoparticles were investigated via various techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, SEM, EDS, TEM, UV-DRS, and XPS techniques. The XRD results confirmed that the prepared nanoparticles have cubic structure with preferred orientation along (111) direction and this plane crystallite size is in the range 18.7 to 16.8 nm. SEM and TEM morphologies reveal the CdO nanoparticles are strongly influenced by the doping of Ru and grain size reduces with increasing Ru doping levels. UV–vis DRS results depict the optical band gap value decreases with increase of Ru content. FTIR, EDS and XPS results are good evidence for formation of pure and Ru doped CdO. The DC electrical conductivity result shows that the 5 wt% Ru doping level have a maximum conductivity compared to pure CdO. The n-RuCdO/p-Si diode parameters (ideality factor (n) and barrier height (_b)) were studied using J-V method. The photocurrent and dark current behaviors of the fabricated n-RuCdO/p-Si diode show good photoconducting response.