Structural, morphological and optical properties of sol-gel prepared Cu doped BiVO4 powders

Cu-doped BiVO₄ nanoparticles were synthesized by sol-gel technique. Doping effects of the host BiVO₄ materials were characterized for structural, vibrational, morphological and optical investigations. It was deduced from XRD and micro Raman analysis, that Cu-doped BiVO₄ showed lattice doping of Cu in the host crystal sites. Cu doped BiVO₄ show 50 - 100 nm range sized particles as compared to pristine sample, which shows larger particle size in the range of 400-500 nm. Broad optical absorption in the range of 500 -800 nm is seen for Cu doped BiVO4 as compared to pristine form with slight band gap reduction as observed from DRS analysis. The calculated energy band gaps are 2.49 and 2.54 eV for 2 at.% Cu doped and pure BiVO₄ respectively.