Small Angle X-ray Scattering Study of Doped ZnO Nanocrystals Using Generalized Indirect Fourier Transformation

The accurate determination of the particle shape and sizes has always been a fundamental task in nanoscience and even become more crucial with the discovery of quantum confinement effect. Due to the uniqueness of shape and size dependent functional properties of doped ZnO semiconductor nanoparticles, an effort has been taken here for determination of its average shape and sizes using small angle X-ray scattering technique. The ZnO and ZnO doped with Mn, Cu, Na nano-systems were synthesized by chemical precipitation route. Small angle X-ray scattering experiment has been performed for the grown products and also to demonstrate the versatility of scattering technique. Scattering data from the semiconductor nanoparticles were analyzed using the Generalized Indirect Fourier Transformation in its simpler Indirect Fourier Transformation form. The data is fitted using cubic B-splines and transformed into a pair distance distribution function. The pair distance distribution function can then directly be interpreted to give average shape and size as well as other structural information.