Abstract
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•Thermal decomposition of Schiff base complexes provides a convenient and effective pathway to fabricate CuO and NiO NPs.•The electrical conduction in CuO NPs and NiO NPs is governed by intrinsic band-to-band type and large polarons conduction mechanism, respectively.•The thermoelectric measurements confirm that the NPs are P-type degenerate semiconductors.•The NPs show weak ferromagnetic ordering at room temperature and antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition with high dipolar interaction.
In this study, CuO and NiO NPs have been synthesized by facile thermal decomposition of Schiff base complexes and their physical properties have been examined. The synthesized CuO and NiO NPs are crystallized in polycrystalline monoclinic and cubic structures with average particle size 17 ± 0.4 and 62 ± 1 nm, respectively. The electrical conductivity measurements confirm that the conduction in the CuO NPs is a band-to-band type while the conduction in the NiO NPs is governed by the large polaron conduction mechanism. The thermoelectric measurements confirm that the CuO and NiO NPs are P-type degenerate semiconductors with room temperature Seebeck coefficients equal to 89.9 and 12.1 mV/K, respectively. The magnetic measurements exhibit that the NPs have weak ferromagnetic ordering and antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition with high dipolar interaction.