Structural, morphological and optical properties of ZnO nano-fibers

•Fabricated nano-fibers have excellent structure, refractive index, and extinction coefficient.•The composite nano-fibers have smooth surfaces.•The optical band gap energy is found to be 3.37 eV.

Microcontroller aided electro-spin coating unit was designed and optimized to fabricate nano-fibers. Composite nano-fibers of ZnO were fabricated using this unit. The ZnO fibers were annealed at different temperatures from 200 °C to 600 °C using muffle furnace, all the continuous fibers were found to be defect free and beads free. The structural and composition of the fibers are analyzed using XRD and EDAX measurements. The X-ray diffraction peaks revealed that the fibers are wurtzite hexagonal structure. The composition of the fiber is confirmed as ZnO from the percentage of constituents of Zinc and Oxygen in EADX results. The optical properties of the fibers are studied by using spectrophotometer. The optical band gap energy is found to be 3.37 eV. The surface morphology of the fiber was studied using SEM and TEM analysis. The fibers are found to be defect free and they are excellent material for high sensitive optoelectronic sensors.