Structural characterisation and optical properties of aluminum-doped zinc oxide nanofibers synthesized by electrospinning

Nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) materials have been of interest for researchers because of their elemental abundance, nontoxicity, and wide range of applications. Furthermore, ZnO characteristics can be tuned via doping (e.g. using aluminum (Al)) in order to enhance their properties. In this work, Aldoped ZnO (AZO) nanofibers were synthesized by electrospinning using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), zinc acetate and aluminum chloride as precursors, then the effect of aluminum doping would be investigated. The nanofibers were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. As a direct band gap material, the optical band gap energy of AZO can be determined by a Tauc plot. The results show that Al doping decreases the crystallite size, nanofiber diameter and band gap energy of ZnO semiconductors. Meanwhile, as the aluminum doping increased above 1 wt%, the crystallite size increased resulting in increased particle size and band gap energy.