Optical properties of laser ablated ZnO nanoparticles prepared with Tween‐80

ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized at different laser powers in pure de-ionized water and in the presence of a non-ionic surfactant Tween-80. Blue shift in wavelength of UV-vis absorption spectra provided the evidence of reduced particle size of the ZnO prepared with Tween-80. Absorption peaks between 360 and 330 nm indicated that particle sizes were below 10 nm. PL spectra showed that using Tween-80 a hump at 2.8 eV appeared in blue emission region which ensured oxygen interstitial. Without adding Tween-80 at different laser powers, defects appeared in different visible regions. This study suggests that nonionic surfactants can be very useful to control crystal defects and to synthesize small sized nanoparticles with narrow particle size distribution.