Abstract
We report on the effect of nanoparticle concentration on the performance of hybrid polymer/zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films. We used scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, UV-Vis absorption, and photoluminescence spectroscopies to study the morphology, structure, and optical behavior of the different nanocomposites. Topographical analysis has shown that ZnO nanoparticles (n-ZnO) affect the morphology of thin film and indicated that the roughness of the samples was found to increase with the concentration of n-ZnO until 50 wt. %, then decreased for higher concentration. A clear contribution of nanoparticles in the nanocomposites absorption has been demonstrated in UV-Vis spectra with maintaining the absorption features of the polymer. Further investigations have revealed a decrease in band gap energy (E-g) with increasing nanoparticles amount in the polymer showing size variation depending on n-ZnO. The structures have shown overlapping emission bands from both ZnO and the polymer. The origins of this emission and its evolution with nanoparticles concentration were also discussed. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.