Influence of chelating agents on structural, photoluminescence properties of PrFeO3 nanomaterials obtained via sol–gel technique
摘要
In the present investigation, the PrFeO3 (PFO) polycrystalline materials were synthesized via sol–gel route using different chelating agents, such as urea (U), ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and Glycine (G) for optimization of better chelating agent to acquire the better physical properties from PFO material. The synthesized samples were analyzed using different characterization techniques, such as X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray Photo spectroscopy (XPS), and photoluminescence. XRD of all the samples shows a pure phase, however Rietveld refinement suggests that PFO exactly fits with orthorhombic perovskite structure with the Pbnm space group. SEM analysis shows that the average particle size is ~ 580 nm, ~ 271 nm, and ~ 490 nm for PFO (U), PFO (EDTA), and PFO (G), respectively. The estimated optical band gap using diffuse reflectance spectra is closed to that of literature reported values. From this investigation, we conclude that PFO (EDTA) is a better chelating agent for the preparation of PFO samples to realize optimal results.