Insights into post-annealing and silver doping effects on the internal microstructure of ZnO nanoparticles through X-ray diffraction probe

- Post-annealing induces clear impact on the internal microstructure of ZnO nanoparticles.
- Silver doping imposed alterations within the lattice of nanocrystaline ZnO.
- Impacts of temperature-based fluctuations and guest phase over the host lattice is clarified.
- Significant correlation exists between the applied annealing-doping conditions and lattice imperfection.

ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized via Pechini method at various post-annealing temperatures (400°, 500°, and 600 °C) and silver doping concentrations (Zn:Ag molar ratios of 30, 20, and 10). Multifarious microstructural features including crystallite size, size-strain based broadening, residual stress, preferential orientation, crystallinity degree, lattice parameters, unit cell variation, and stacking fault probability were surveyed through phase analysis, Williamson-Hall plot, texture coefficient and unit cell calculations. X-ray probing verified good crystallinity with a hexagonal close pack Wurtzite morphology. Williamson-Hall analysis exhibited distributions of crystallite size and microstrain as well as their contributions on the line broadening of the host ZnO and guest Ag phases upon annealing-doping treatments. Textural analysis revealed the alteration in anisotropic crystallinity of the host phase and transformation of the preferred directions, (100) and (101), as function of annealing-doping processes. Besides, while guest Ag phase was shown to be polycrystalline with randomly orientated crystals at moderate concentration with respect to thermal treatment, preferential orientation went through a major change, (220) to (111), with increment in Ag loadings. Under identical synthetic conditions, the distinction in the lattice constants and unit cell variation between pure and doped ZnO nanoparticles was enforced and results verified major impressionability via annealing and doping factors.

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