Effects of Al dopants on the microstructures and optical properties of ZnO nanofibers prepared by electrospinning

This paper reports the microstructures and optical properties of nanofibers of Al-doped ZnO with the concentration of Al3+ dopants being 0, 1, 2, and 3 at% prepared by electrospinning method. The prepared samples were studied by XRD, EDS, and FTIR. The microstructure of the fibers measured by SEM and TEM was affected by the amount of Al dopants. The introduction of Al3+ improved the surface microstructure and homogeneousness of the precursor fibers, but brought negative effects to the crystal quality and defects in final samples after calcination. Besides, the increase of Al contents led to smaller grains and lower degrees of crystal. The optical properties of samples were characterized by photoluminescence spectra at room temperature. Strong violet emissions, blue emissions, and weak green emissions were observed in all samples.