A study on the influence of metal (Fe, Bi, and Ag) doping on structural, optical, and antimicrobial activity of ZnO nanostructures

In present work, the doping of ZnO nanoparticles has been achieved successfully by the addition of intentional impurity in the ZnO lattice by two transitions and one other metal namely iron, silver, and bismuth, respectively (Zn1-xO-Fe-x, Zn1-xO-Bi-x, and Zn1-xO-Ag-x;x = 10%). The aim of the work is to enhance the optical and antimicrobial efficiency of ZnO by doping with different metals and study the effect on structural, morphological, and optical properties. The as-synthesized pure and doped ZnO were characterized using advanced tools i.e. TEM, SEM, XRD, FT-IR, EDX, UV-DRS, BET, AFM, and Raman spectroscopy. The antimicrobial activity of pure and doped ZnO was tested on Gram-positive and -negative bacteria by agar disc diffusion assay. The significant change was observed in the optical and morphological properties of ZnO after doping clearly due to the influence of dopant ions.