Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Stella C ¹
• Ramachandran K ²

¹ Department of Physics, Stella Maris College, Chennai, 600086, India

² School of Physics, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, 625021, India

Abstract

Undoped and Co₃O₄-loaded (5, 10, and 15 at.%) SnO₂ nanoparticles were prepared by a simple co-precipitation method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) study confirmed the presence of tetragonal phase of SnO₂ and cubic stage of Co₃O₄ in accumulation to this the preferred orientation and texture coefficient were derived. The texture coefficient of (200) plane increases with parallel decrease in (110) plane, which indicate the development of voids like vacancies along (110) direction. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses recognized the uniform dispersion of spherical shaped nanoparticles. EDS analysis confirmed the impurity absence in the prepared samples. UV-Vis absorption analysis confirmed that the optical band gap will get red shifted from bulk which is due to the agglomeration of nanoparticles and also due to the influences of Co₃O₄. The absorption peaks broadens after loading Co₃O₄ which indicate the surface related defects in the samples. The refractive indices derived from the band gap values had confirmed the fiber-optic sensor working under the leaky mode operation. Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) results confirmed the behavior of ferromagnet in pure SnO₂ and antiferromagnet stage in Co₃O₄ loaded SnO₂. The undoped SnO₂ with room temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) shows better sensitivity. The sensitivity of SnO₂ and Co₃O₄ loaded SnO₂ samples were 0.076 and 0.084, respectively. The enhanced sensitivity of Co₃O₄ loaded SnO₂ was due to the high catalytic activity of Co₃O₄.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords

• Nanoparticles
• Texture coefficient
• Fiber-optic sensor
• Ferromagnetism

Main Subjects

• Nanomaterials & Nanotechnology