The effect of Fe and Ni dual-doping on the structural, optical and magnetic properties of Zn3P2 nanoparticles

In this work, the Zn(3-(x+y))FexNiyP2 (x = 0.02, y = 0.02, 0.05, 0.07, and 0.09) system was synthesized with varying dopant concentrations using the solid-state reaction technique. Synthesized nanoparticles were subjected to different characterizations such as X-ray diffraction spectrometer (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), Ultraviolet-visible near-infrared region spectroscopy (UV-Vis-NIR), Photoluminescence (PL) and Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The XRD patterns confirmed that all samples have a tetragonal structure without any further phases present. Lattice parameters increase from a = b = 8.021 & Aring;, c = 11.404 & Aring; to a = b = 8.158 & Aring;, c = 11.450 & Aring; with increasing dopant concentration. SEM studies revealed particles are agglomerated with the effect of dopant concentration. EDAX spectra found nearly expected stoichiometric ratios and involved only Zn, P, Fe, and Ni elements. In the diffused reflectance spectra, the optical band gap increases from 1.410 to 1.438 eV with increasing dopant concentration. The emission peaks reveal that all emission peaks are in the same wavelength location as a result of the dopant content with excited wavelengths 215 nm and 242 nm. At room temperature, the ferromagnetic behavior of both the pure and codoped samples was confirmed by VSM. It is discovered that as the dopant content rises, the magnetic moment increases from 0.0863 to 0.2021 emu/g. We have observed from our calculations, magnetically stable phases and it suggests that these compounds may be useful materials for semiconductor spintronic devices.