Title: Characterisation of amorphous Se97Te3 nanoparticles prepared by ball milling

Authors: J.K. Lal, Shamshad A. Khan, A.A. Al-Ghamdi, Zishan H. Khan

Addresses: Department of Chemistry, St. Andrew's P.G. College, Gorakhpur-273001, UP, India. ' Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah-21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Department of Physics, St. Andrew's P.G. College, Gorakhpur-273001, UP, India. ' Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah-21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ' Center of Nanotechnology, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah-21589, KSA

Abstract: The authors| present research work is concentrated with structural and optical studies of amorphous Se97Te3 nanoparticles. The amorphous Se97Te3 material was used as a starting material. The ball milling was performed in a Laboratory 8000M-Mixer/Mill (SPEX) mill. The milled materials were characterised by XRD, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and optical measurements within the wavelength region 300 nm-1000 nm. From XRD measurements, it is found that an amorphous stage is also achieved during the milling process. TEM measurements showed that after 30 hours, 40 hours and 70 hours of milling time, amorphous nanoparticles of different sizes were developed. The optical band gap and optical constants of the milled materials have been studied as a function of photon energy. Optical absorption measurements indicate that the absorption mechanism is due to indirect transition. It has been observed that the absorption coefficient increases lineally with the increase in photon energy and the optical band gap increases with the increase of milling time.

Keywords: amorphous nanoparticles; ball milling; optical constants; absorption coefficient; photon energy; milling time; nanotechnology; nanomanufacturing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNM.2009.028127

International Journal of Nanomanufacturing, 2009 Vol.4 No.1/2/3/4, pp.208 - 218

Published online: 07 Sep 2009 *

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