Effect of copper oxide (CuO) and vanadium oxide (V(2)O(5)) addition on the structural, optical and electrical properties of corundum (α-Al(2)O(3))

In this work, we prepared a pure α-Al(2)O(3), α-Al(2)O(3)/CuO (AC) and α-Al(2)O(3)/V(2)O(5) (AV) nanocomposite. The sol–gel method was used to prepare pure α-Al(2)O(3), (AC) and (AV) samples at 1200 °C. Structural, electrical, and optical properties of the prepared samples were investigated using the X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Visible spectrophotometer, and conductivity meter, respectively. The XRD results confirmed the crystalline nature and the presence of the hexagonal structure of α-Al(2)O(3), the rhombohedra structure of CuAlO(2) and the tetragonal structure of V(2)O(5). Moreover, the crystallite size of pure α-Al(2)O(3) was 43.1 nm, while the crystallite size of α-Al(2)O(3) in samples AC and AV nanocompsite was 24.05 nm and 34.84 nm respectively. The optical measurements showed that the band gap α-Al(2)O(3) decreased significantly from 5.28 eV for pure to 3.7 and 3.4 eV to AC and AV respectively. The DC electrical conductivity (σ(d.c)) values were measured for all prepared samples at room temperature. The electrical conductivity was 2.4 × 10(–7) and 1.8 × 10(–7) (Ω cm)(−1) in AC and AV nanocompsite respectively, while ionic conductivity (σ(ion)) decreased from 3 × 10(–10) in pure α-Al(2)O(3) to 7 × 10(–5) and 1 × 10(–5) in AC and AV nanocompsite, respectively. The results showed an improvement in the structural, optical, and electrical properties, which may make these materials a candidate for use in many applications, such as photocatalytic, gas sensors, optoelectronics, microelectronics, semiconductor devices, ……etc.