In-situ Synthesis of PVA/HgS Nanocomposite Films and Tuning Optical Properties

Omed Gh. Abdullah^1, , Yahya A.K. Salman² and Salwan A. Saleem²

¹Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Science Education, School of Science, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

²Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Mosul, Iraq

Cite this paper:
Omed Gh. Abdullah, Yahya A.K. Salman and Salwan A. Saleem. In-situ Synthesis of PVA/HgS Nanocomposite Films and Tuning Optical Properties. Physics and Materials Chemistry. 2015; 3(2):18-24. doi: 10.12691/pmc-3-2-1

Abstract

Polymer based nanocomposite films of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) doped with mercury sulfide (HgS) were prepared via in-situ chemical reduction and the solution cast methods, with different HgS concentrations, in order to study the effect of HgS content on optical properties of PVA. The nanocomposites films were characterized using FTIR, XRD, and SEM. The UV-Visible absorption spectra in the wavelength range (190–1100) nm were analyzed in terms of absorption formula for non-crystalline materials. The band gap and the fundamental optical constants of the prepared samples have been investigated and showed a clear dependence on the HgS concentration. The observed value of band gap for pure polyvinyl alcohol is about 6.27 eV and decreases to a value 4.88 eV for the film of 0.04M HgS content. The refractive index and consequently the related dispersion parameters of PVA and PVA/HgS nanocomposite versus HgS content have been determined and explained using Wemple-DiDomenico single oscillator model.

Keywords:
polymer nanocomposite mercury sulfide optical band gap complex dielectric constant

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