Abstract:
In this work, a nanoparticle of pure ZnO and heterostructures of Cu2O/ZnO, Ag3PO4/ZnO
and Cu2O/ZnO/Ag3PO4with different ratios of precursor salts were prepared by simple
precipitation method. Modern characterization instruments such as X-ray diffractometer
(XRD), UV-Vis spectroscopy, Spectro fluorophotometerandBrunauer–Emmett–Teller(BET)
were used to characterize the synthesized powders. Crystal sizes of all the prepared powders
were examined using XRD. The average crystal size of the prepared powders was calculated
based upon the intense peak, using the DubyeScherrer equation. The BET method was used to
analyze the surface area of the prepared powders. Based on BET and XRD results,
Cu2O/ZnO/Ag3PO4with metal ratio of (15:70:15) was selected among ternary nanocomposites for further characterization. UV- Vis spectroscopy was employed to estimate
band gap energies of prepared powders. The room temperature Spectro fluorophotometer was
used to measure the optical emissions from the synthesized powders as electrons return to the
ground state. The result shows that the emission intensity of Cu2O/ZnO/Ag3PO4 is smaller
than ZnO, Cu2O/ZnO and Ag3PO4/ZnO, which indicates that the electron hole recombination
rate in the ternary nanocomposite is less than that of a pure nanoparticle and binary
nanocomposite. In general, the nanocomposite semiconductor have better absorption in
visible region than the pure/single nanoparticle. Therefore, the heterojunctions of three
semiconductor are better for optical device application in visible light region
