Surfactant-free hydrothermal synthesis and optical properties of ZnS solid microspheres

In this report, ZnS solid microspheres have been successfully obtained through a surfactant-free hydrothermal method. The obtained ZnS solid microspheres were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM results reveal that the diameter of ZnS solid microspheres is from several hundreds of nanometers to about 2 pm. Optical properties of the ZnS solid microspheres were investigated by UV-vis absorption spectrum and room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. UV-vis absorption spectrum shows that the ZnS solid microspheres have a strong absorption peak centered at 337 nm. Room temperature PL spectrum shows that the as obtained ZnS solid microspheres have an obviously strong green emission band at 522 nm. At the same time, the formation mechanism of the ZnS microsphere was proposed based on the experimental process. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.