Surfactant Assisted Synthesis of Cuprous Oxide (Cu₂O) Nanoparticles via Solvothermal Process

M. A. Khan^{1, 2,} , Mahboob Ullah¹, Tariq Iqbal¹, Hasan Mahmood^{3, 4}, Ayaz A. Khan¹, Muhammad Shafique¹, A. Majid¹, Azhar Ahmed¹ and Nawazish A. Khan⁵

¹Department of Physics, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad 13100, Pakistan

²High Tech Centralized Instrumentation Laboratory, UAJK, Muzaffarabad 13100, Pakistan

³Department of Physics, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA

⁴Department of Physics, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Defence Road Lahore

⁵Department of Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan

Cite this paper:
M. A. Khan, Mahboob Ullah, Tariq Iqbal, Hasan Mahmood, Ayaz A. Khan, Muhammad Shafique, A. Majid, Azhar Ahmed and Nawazish A. Khan. Surfactant Assisted Synthesis of Cuprous Oxide (Cu₂O) Nanoparticles via Solvothermal Process. Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research. 2015; 3(1):16-22. doi: 10.12691/nnr-3-1-3

Abstract

Cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) nanoparticles have been synthesized by facile solvothermal scheme. The reduction of copper sulphate pentahydrate (CuSO₄.5H₂O) was carried out with D-glucose as a reductant, in the presence of organic additive polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP K-30). The synthesized CuO₂ nanoparticles have been characterized by UV-Vis Spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy. The SEM images showed that the morphology of the Cu₂O nanostructures was highly uniform and growth was controlled. The nanoparticles were found to be single crystalline and monodispersed in octahedral shapes. Such type of morphology has not been reported yet using PVP K-30 as surfactant. XRD peaks confirmed the single crystalline phases of Cu₂O nanoparticles. The growth of the monodispersed single crystals has been explained on the basis of diffusion mechanism. The grain size of the nanoparticles was found to be in the range of 34- 45 nm. UV-visible absorptions spectra showed that the bandgap transition is around 635 nm (~ 2.0 eV). FTIR transmission peak at 623 cm^-1 confirmed Cu(I)-O vibrations, which is very well consistent with the reported value.

Keywords:
cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) nanocrystals solvothermal synthesis semiconducting materials

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