Structural, magnetic and dielectric characteristics of optically tuned Fe doped ZrO2 nanoparticles with visible light driven photocatalytic activity

This study reports synthesis, physiochemical characteristics, dielectric properties, and photocatalytic activity of ultrafine undoped and Fe doped ZrO2 NPs via facile co-precipitation method. The detailed structural analysis (XRD) has confirmed the tetragonal phase stabilization due to Fe doping. SEM analysis depicts narrow spherical like morphology for prepared samples with particle size of around 24 nm. The band gap of the formed nanoparticles significantly narrows (3.7 eV-2.1 eV) towards the visible range, which was assigned to hybridization of orbital of host, dopant and defects impurities that triggered solar light degradation activity. Room temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) has been observed remarkably, owing to oxygen vacancies and lattice distortion in ZrO2 during the growth of tetragonal phase. Interestingly incorporation of Fe dopant in ZrO2 matrix has significantly enhanced the dielectric constant up to 9.4 x 10(3) with a very low loss, which is attributed to phase purity and size of nanoparticles. Moreover, Fe-ZrO2 NPs have demonstrated 94.2% visible light trigged photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) in 120 min, which is assigned to the control on electron-hole recombination rate. The removal of MB has been racked up using 10% Fe-ZrO2 NPs. The uniform nanoparticles obtained with RTFM, high dielectric constant and almost complete removal of MB at rapid rate are potential for spintronics, high-frequency devices, and water purifications technologies.