Band gap narrowing and fluorescence properties of nickel doped SnO2 nanoparticles

Nickel-doped tin oxide nanoparticles (sub-5 nm size) with intense fluorescence emission behavior have been synthesized by sol-gel route The structural and compositional analysis has been carried out by using XRD TEM FESEM and EDAX The optical absorbance spectra indicate a band gap narrowing effect and it was found to increase with the increase in nickel concentration The band gap narrowing at low dopant concentration (< 5%) can be assigned to SnO2-SnO2-x,,, alloying effect and for higher doping it may be due to the formation of defect sub-bands below the conduction band (c) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved