Synthesis and Optical Characterization of Metal Oxide Nanostructures and Poly nanocomposites

Abstract

For the last twenty years or so, the metal oxide nanoparticles and polymer nanocomposites have received an enormous scientific attention because of their remarkable properties and diversified technological applications. Optical behaviour of metal oxides is sensitive to crystal structure, chemical composition, solvents, dopants, surface defects and calcination temperature. Though the enormous amount of work exists on optical properties of nanoparticles but in some material, there are issues regarding nature of band gap and crystalline phase dependent optical behaviour of metal oxides. On the other hand, optical properties of polymer nanocomposites vary with nanofiller characteristics (size, shape and concentration) and interaction between nanofiller and polymer matrix. Therefore, in this thesis we present synthesis and optical properties of metal oxide (CuO, SnO2, TiO2 and ZrO2) nanoparticles and polycarbozole/tin oxide (PCz/SnO2) and polycarbozole/titanium oxide (PCz/TiO2) polymer nanocomposites. The thesis highlights the novel chemical synthesis scheme which is quick, inexpensive and easy to handle. Other aspect of the thesis is to investigate the effect of solvents and calcination temperatures on optical properties of metal oxide nanoparticles and nanofiller content on optical behaviour of polymer nanocomposites. FRET is a transfer of non-radiative energy from donor to acceptor molecule via dipole-dipole coupling. We have also made in detail FRET studies between TiO2 nanoparticles and coumain-440 dye. newlineThe thesis comprises of six chapters. In chapter 1 we give brief introduction to metal oxide nanomaterials and polymer nanocomposites along with motivation and objectives of the thesis. newline(vi) newlineChapter 2 deals with synthesis of metal oxide nanostructures and polycarbazole nanocomposites. Chapter begins with the literature survey on synthesis of metal oxides and polymer nanocomposites. The detailed synthesis technique adopted for the synthesis of CuO, SnO2,TiO2,ZrO2 and polymer nanocomposites are presented. The advant