Chromium Doped Neodymium Oxide PVA Nanocomposites: Electrical and Optical Revelations

The present work emphasis on the effect of Chromium doped neodymium oxide nanoparticles on optical, electrical, morphological and micro crystalline properties of resultant PVA nano composite. PVA/NdCrO3 were fabricated using solvent casting method with varying concentration of neodymium chromium oxide nanoparticle viz (0.0, 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0wt./wt.%). The obtained nano composites are subjected to X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to evaluate their phase behaviour and morphological properties of nanocomposites. UV-visible Spectroscopy, Photoluminescence Spectroscopy, were employed to evaluate their optical properties. LCR meter was used to examine the electrical properties of prepared nanocomposites. The UV–visible spectra reveals that there is decrease in indirect band gap of PVA from 4.98 to 2.46 eV and direct band gap from 3.9 to 1.08 eV compared to pristine PVA. NdCrO3 doped nanocomposite which shows multi-fold enhancement in optical characteristics such as refractive index of nanocomposites compared pristine PVA, optical conductivity, extinction coefficient, Urbach’s energy on increasing in dopant concentration. The electrical properties such as dielectric constant (ε′), dielectric loss (ε″), and electric modulus (M′ and M″) of the nanocomposite were measured over a range of frequencies. The dielectric constant decreases with increase in frequency and the contents of nanofiller in PVA matrix. Whereas, dielectric loss increases with frequency and decreases with nanofiller contents. From the obtained results it is clear that the obtained nanocomposites open a new window as multiple materials.