Review of Synthesis, Characteristics, and Applications of Doped Zinc Oxide Nanostructures

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a unique material due to its physical and chemical properties, such as wide bandgap at room temperature (RT) (3.37 eV) and high binding energy (60 meV). This chapter contains the most important synthesis methods of doped ZnO nanostructure preparation. The most common methods for preparing nanoparticles (NPs) and thin films (TFs) are sol-gel, precipitation, and hydrothermal. The effects of doping appear in various forms and properties. Therefore, doped ZnO nanostructure characteristics are described to explain the structural properties, including the particle size measurement methods and the other features based on XRD data and others, and optical properties contain the approaches of bandgap energy calculations depending on UV-visible results, as well as electrical and magnetic properties. The doped ZnO nanostructures’ properties change after doping with metals and non-metals. The last part of the chapter illustrates the most prevalent and crucial applications, starting with medicine, followed by photocatalysis, photovoltaic, UV absorbers and photodetectors, and sensors, and finishing with a light-emitting diode (LED). This review provides valuable information when dealing with works related to pure and doped ZnO nanostructures.