Synthesis, structural and optical properties of a new orthochromite compound prepared by sol–gel method
摘要
Polycrystalline NdCrO3 compound was successfully prepared with the sol–gel method. The X-ray diffraction patterns show that the studied material is pure and crystallizes in the orthorhombic system with the Pnma space group. The optical properties of this compound were characterized by UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy. The absorbance and the reflectance spectra, determined by UV–Vis absorption spectrometry, reveals direct optical band gap evaluated at (3.282 ± 0.012) eV. Optical parameters such as Urbach energy, refractive index, extinction coefficient, dielectric function, and optical conductivity were all derived from experimental data. The electronic structure of the NdCrO3 sample was determined from the UV–Vis absorbance spectrum, which corresponds to the 3d–3d transitions of Cr3⁺ ions and the 4f–4f transitions of Nd3⁺ ions. A Tanabe-Sugano diagram was constructed based on a theoretical Racah analysis. The obtained results show that our compound may be proposed as a good candidate for optoelectronic devices.