Abstract
A novel polymer-semiconductor nanocomposites of polyvinyl alcoholoxovanadium chloride (PVA-VOCl) films have been successfully synthesized by the simple solution casting technique. XRD analysis of the prepared films confirms the formation of VOCl nanocrystals with different particle sizes distributed in the PVA polymer resulting in the increment in the crystalline phase of the whole structure of PVA-VOCl polymer nanocomposite. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy measurements indicate the distribution of VOCl in the polymer matrix. The optical absorption spectra measurements exhibit a complete blocking of the UV range (200–400 nm) due to VOCl dispersion in the polymer matrix. The optical gap
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of the films were determined with a high degree of precision using Tauc relation, Absorption spectra fitting and the new accurate geometric method show a strong decrease from 5.2 eV for pure PVA to 2.85 eV with increasing the VOCl level in the polymer film. In addition, the high-frequency refractive index estimated from the optical gap values exhibits a significant increase from 1.70 to 2.07. Our samples can be considered as an innovative flexible optical material for UV filters, optoelectronics, and photonics applications.