ZnO-doped KCl single crystal with enhanced UV emission lines

The embedded bulk KCl single crystal with the ZnO nanocrystal was grown using Czochralski technique. Various structural and optical analyses were employed to characterize the grown sample. X-ray diffraction confirmed the diffusion of ZnO NCs in the KCl bulk lattice. The crystal structure and the lattice parameters were estimated for both ZnO NCs and KCl matrix by Rietveld analysis. The bond formation of KCl:ZnO was demonstrated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. FE-SEM was carried out for the morphological study of ZnO NCs and estimation of particle size distributions. Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis was used to investigate the elemental composition of the prepared sample. The experimental results confirmed the improvement in optical properties of KCl single crystal was found when it was doped by ZnO. The second derivative of absorption spectrum confirmed the band gap of 6.06 eV for KCl single crystal. In PL spectrum, several intense UV light emission peaks at 297 and 360 nm were observed in which the emission peaks of KCl:ZnO samples were very sharp in comparison with the pure KCl single crystal. It seems that the UV peaks at 297 and 360 nm emission lines of ZnO-doped KCl crystals originated from electron capturing from F center.