Microwave-assisted synthesis and characterization of undoped and manganese doped zinc sulfide nanoparticles
arXiv:2208.02574 · doi:10.1016/j.matchemphys.2022.126583
Abstract
Undoped and Mn-doped ZnS nanocrystals were produced by the microwave-assisted solvothermal method and characterized by X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. All samples have the cubic zinc blende structure with the lattice parameter in the range of = 5.406-5.411 Å, and the average size of crystallites is in the range of 6-9 nm. These nanoparticles agglomerate and form large grains with an average size of up to 180 nm. The photoluminescence of the undoped ZnS sample shows a broad emission band located at 530 nm, attributed to the defects at the surface of nanoparticles. In all Mn-doped samples, the emission peak at 598 nm was observed assigned to the characteristic forbidden transition between excited (T) and ground (A) levels of Mn. Synchrotron radiation X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the Zn and Mn K-edges combined with reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulations based on the evolutionary algorithm confirms that manganese ions substitute zinc ions. However, the difference in the ion sizes ((Mn(IV)) = 0.66 Å and (Zn(IV)) = 0.60 Å) is responsible for the larger interatomic distances Mn-S (2.40(2) Å) compared to Zn-S (2.33(2) Å). The static structural relaxations in ZnS:Mn nanoparticles are responsible for the large values of the mean-square displacements factors for Zn, S and Mn atoms obtained by RMC simulations.