Characterization of GO Added ZnO Crystal Growth Using Electric Current Heating Method

Abstract

ZnO has attractive and great properties especially in the fields of photonics, electronics and optics and it is widely used in the manufacturing industry of photodetectors, laser diodes and gas detectors. Therefore, various methods have been carried out to produce ZnO crystals and one of them is the Electric Current Heating method. Electric Current Heating (ECH) method is a fabrication technique applied in researches to grow ZnO crystal on a ceramic bar. This method is preferred because of it is easy to operate in laboratory, low growth temperature and also low cost. In this research, by using powder metallurgy process, Graphene Oxide/GO (in various weight percentage) added into ZnO was pelletized in a compaction die with dimension of 14.95 mm x 30 mm x 40 mm and pressure of 4 bar. The pellet green body was then sintered at 1100 °C with rate 10.0 °C/min for 3 hours. The sintered GO added ZnO ceramic was cut into ceramic bar with dimensio of 13mm x 2mm x 2mm. ECH with current 3 A and applied voltage of 30 V was used to heat the ceramic bar to produce crystals. Under scanning electron observation, it was found different crystal-like structures for each percentage GO addition. UV-Vis measurement has shown that each crystal-like structure of a GO added ZnO has own degree of energy absorbsion because of different band gap. Addition GO into ZnO would increase band gap of pure ZnO.