Experimental and theoretical study on the structural, electrical and optical properties of tantalum-doped ZnO nanoparticles prepared via sol-gel acetate route

We showed that above thermal treatments at 600 °C the precursor samples take the hexagonal wurtzite ZnO phase with high crystallinity. For the doped samples, we found that the synthesizing method has good Ta doping efficiency of the ZnO host structure. Also, Ta doping substantially decreases the resistivity compared to pure ZnO. These results confirm that Ta impurities can substitute Zn atoms and act as donor impurities in the host semiconductor.