Red shift of the band-edge photoluminescence emission and effects of annealing and capping agent on structural and optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles

Use of nontoxic and biodegradable capping agents during the synthesis of nanomaterials has drawn a lot of research attention due to their potential applicability in biophotonic and bio-imaging devices. However, here we have reported the synthesis of an uncapped and biodegradable polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) capped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs), by using a simple chemical precipitation method at room temperature, followed by isochronal annealing of the as-synthesized sample at 200, 400, 500 and 600 °C for 2 h in air. The effects of using PVA and thermal annealing on the structural and optical properties of synthesized ZnO NPs have been reported. From the X-ray diffraction data analyses it has been observed that the use of PVA caused tensile strain in the annealed samples, whereas the samples synthesized without PVA capping showed compressive strain. For an estimation of strain and sizes of the NPs, three different models namely, uniform deformation model (UDM), uniform stress deformation model (USDM) and uniform deformation energy density model (UDEDM) have been used. The photoluminescence (PL) emission characteristics of the samples have been reported and they are found to consist of a strong near band-edge UV emission, which is systematically red shifted due to annealing from 371 to 383 nm for the capped and from 372 to 385 nm for the uncapped samples. Such biodegradable capped nanoparticles having UV PL emission might find potential applications as biophotonic materials.