Effect of Cr Doping on the Structural, Optical and Dielectric Properties of MoO₃ Microrods Synthesized by Sol-Gel Auto Combustion Method

Abstract

In the present work, pure and Cr-doped MoO3 microrods were successfully prepared through the sol gel auto combustion method. The phase evaluation and microstructural, dielectric, and optical properties of synthesized samples were investigated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and an impedance analyzer (1 MHz–3 GHz). All the samples showed hexagonal structure with space group (P63). According to Vegard’s law, lattice parameters increase with the increase in chromium (Cr3+) contents. In addition, the Williamson–Hall (W–H) plot was drawn for evaluating the micro-strain (εW-H) and crystallite size (DW-H) parameters. From microstructural analysis it was found that the size of microrods increased along with Cr3+ contents. Decreasing band gap energy was observed (from 2.98 to 2.71 eV) with increasing Cr3+ contents. The variation of the dielectric constant and tangent loss of MoO3 microrods with respect to frequency were analyzed.

Keywords

• Cr-doped MoO₃ microrods
• X-ray diffraction
• microstructure
• band gap energy
• dielectric properties