Temperature-dependence on the structural, optical, and magnetic properties of Al-doped ZnO nanoparticles

Al-doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by a hydrothermal method at relatively low temperature synthesis and anneal were reported in this paper. The XRD results reveal that all the samples have a hexagonal wurtzite structure. A higher synthesis temperature leads to a slight increase in the grain size and improvement of the crystal quality. Different morphologies evolved from acicular closely-packed morphology to dandelion-like 3D nanostructures can be obtained by controlling the synthesis temperatures. Moreover, the influence of synthesis temperature on optical property indicates that the absorption ability in ultraviolet region declines with increasing the synthesis temperature. In addition, the annealed nanoparticles have an enhancement of the room temperature ferromagnetism (RT-FM) and the saturation magnetization (M-S). Those results suggest that Al-doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized at relatively low temperature could be a promising candidate for photosensitive and room temperature nanolasers applications. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.