Research Journal of Recent Sciences ______ ______________________________ ______ ____ ___ IS SN 2277 - 2502 Vol. 2 ( ISC - 2012 ), 1 02 - 105 (201 3 ) Res. J. Recent . Sci. International Science Congress Association 102 Growth and Characterization of Cobalt Sulphide Nanorods Ariponnammal S. and Srinivasan T. Department of Physics, Gandhigram Rura l Institute, Deemed University, Gandhigram, Dindigul District, TamilNadu , INDIA Available online at: www.isca.in Received 2 1 th November 2012 , revised 24 th December 2012 , accepted 19 th January 201 3 Abstract Uniformly distributed cobalt sulphide (CoS) nanorods with diameter of 139nm and 0.7µm long have been synthesized by using inexpensive chem ical precipitation method. The X - ray powder diffraction study has shown the amorphous nature of the as prepared CoS nanorods. The scanning electron microscope reveals the morphology of the nanorods having nearly spherical head and elongated to flat tail ti p just similar to nail shape. These kinds of structure are useful in laser and field emission applications. The analysis of EDAX has shown the presence of nearly equal percentage of cobalt and sulphur along with oxygen peak. This shows the formation of cob alt sulphide with slight hydrous nature. The hydrous nature is confirmed by FTIR study which has shown the presence of O - H bond. The UV - VIS transmission spectrum of CoS nanorods shows high absorption in the ultra - violet region at about 350nm which makes th e material to be suitable for UV filters. The room temperature photoluminescence at excitation wavelength of 320nm exhibits two bands of which one violet emission observed at 413nm is broad and other blue emission band at 493nm is comparatively sharp. Thes e two emissions are originated from Co vacancy related defects or their complexes. Keywords: Nanorods, CoS, SEM . Introduction Semiconducting nanostructures are promising candidates for future electronic and photonic devices. They have unique physical a nd chemical properties and can be used as elementary units of opto electronic devices 1 . In nanostructures, the density of states of carrier is concentrated at some specific energy levels, which enable enhancement of exciton oscillator strength and light em itting efficiency. As a result, the performance of nanostructure based optical devices is expected to improve and to be less temperature dependent. So far, many semiconducting materials have been grown into nanostructures 2 - 5 . Among these, cobalt sulphide ( CoS) form a II - IV compounds with considerable potential for application in electronic devices 6 . It can be used in solar energy as absorbers 7 , ultra high density magnetic recording 8 , anodes for Li - ion batteries 9 and catalysts for hydrodesulphurization and d ehydrodearomatization 10 . And also, the cobalt sulphide also finds novel applications in selective coatings and solar cells, optical filters, temperature sensors, optical wave guides and IR detectors 11 - 21 . It is of particular interest that the properties of cobalt sulphide are strongly dependent on the particle size, shape, distribution and surface. Therefore, the crystal structure and opto - electronic properties of CoS may be varied depending on the micro environment of layered inorganic matrices. It is also notable that the properties, morphologies and stochiometric compositions were affected by various synthetic routes 22 . In the continuing search for different synthetic routes for nanostructures, the synthesis of CoS nanorods has been made by simple chemica l precipitation method and it’s analysis has been presented in this paper. Material and Methods The CoS nanorods were prepared by the simple chemical precipitation method at room temperature. All chemicals were of analytical grade and used without further purification. In this synthesis, 100 ml of aqueous solution of the reactants was prepared using 0.1 M CoCl 2 and 0.1 M Na 2 S as the reactant materials. Freshly prepared aqueous solution of 0.1M Na 2 S was mixed drop by drop in the 0.1 M CoCl 2 solution using vi gorous stirring. As the reaction was started the reaction system suddenly changed from pale orange to dark black and the stirring was continued upto 2 hours. The precipitate was then washed several times with ethanol and centrifuged. The precipitate collec ted from centrifugation was dried at 60ºC for few hours and then kept in dissicator. It is dark black in colour. This dried CoS powder was further characterized by XRD, SEM, EDAX, FTIR, UV - VIS and Photoluminescence spectrum. The powder XRD was performed b y using Richseifert diffractometer. The SEM images were taken on a JEOL JSM - 6390 model (made in Japan) scanning electron microscope. The EDAX spectrum was recorded by OXFORD INCAPENTAx3 model made in England. The FTIR spectrum was recorded using Perkin Elm er spectrum BX model spectrophotometer by KBr pellet technique in the range 400 – 4000cm - 1 at a resolution 2 cm - 1 . The UV - Visible absorption spectrum was recorded using Perkin Elmer Lamda 35 spectrophotometer in the spectral range 200 to 1100nm. The PL emiss ion spectrum was recorded by VARIAN Cary Eclipse Fluorescence Spectrophotometer employing 150 Watts Xe arc discharge lamp as the excitation source. Research Journal of Recent Sciences ______ _ _ _______________________________ ______________ _ ___ _____ ISSN 2277 - 2502 Vol. 2 ( ISC - 2012 ), 1 02 - 105 (201 3 ) Res. J. Recent Sci . International Science Congress Association 103 Results and Discussion XRD : The figure1 has shown the recorded powder XRD for the sample. It has shown only increased background and does not show any peaks which confirms the amorphous nature of the sample. Figure - 1 X - ray powder diffraction pattern of CoS nanorods SEM : The SEM images (figure2) of as prepared CoS has shown uniformly distributed cobalt sulphi de (CoS) nanorods with average diameter of 139nm and 0.7µm long. The scanning electron microscope reveals the morphology of the nanorods having nearly spherical head and elongated to flat tail tip just similar to nail shape. These kinds of structure are us eful in laser and field emission applications. EDAX : The CoS is one of the more complicated metal sulphide systems with a number of phases and differing chemical compositions 6 . The diversity in the stochiometry of cobalt sulphides poses a challenge for th e control of size and shape in small particle synthesis which is exacerbated by potential coexistence of the strongly reducible cobalt ion and oxidizable sulphide ion 23 . The energy dispersive x - ray spectrum (figure 3) has shown that the Co and S are presen t in the atomic percentage of 19.38 and 13.67 with intensity correlation 0.8736 and 0.8960 respectively. The analysis of EDAX has shown the presence of nearly equal percentage of Cobalt and Sulphur along with oxygen peak of intensity correlation 1.1532. Th is shows the formation of cobalt sulphide with slight hydrous nature. The hydrous nature is confirmed by FTIR study which has shown clearly the presence of O - H bond. FTIR: The figure 4 shows the FTIR spectrum of the CoS and table 1 presents the observed a bsorption frequencies and their assignments in relation to their characteristic vibrational modes. The broad trough positioned in between 3650 - 2729cm - 1 corresponds to O - H bonding which confirms the hydrous nature. The bands observed at 832.6 and 609.91 are characteristic bands of sulphides 24 - 25 . Figur e - 2 SEM images of CoS nanorods with two different magnification Figure - 3 EDAXpattern of as prepared CoS Research Journal of Recent Sciences ______ _ _ _______________________________ ______________ _ ___ _____ ISSN 2277 - 2502 Vol. 2 ( ISC - 2012 ), 1 02 - 105 (201 3 ) Res. J. Recent Sci . International Science Congress Association 104 Figure - 4 FTIR spectrum of CoS Table - 1 The assignment of FTIR bands of CoS Sl. No. Frequency of bands Assignment 24 - 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 3539.56 3356.74 2372.66 1618.05 1411.91 1094.42 832.60 609.91 O - H stretching O - H stretching O - H stretching O - H stretching O - H stretching O - H stretching Sulphides Sulphides UV - Visible: The transmission spectrum of CoS recorded in the UV - Vis region is shown in figure 5. It shows that the cobalt sulphide nanorods have high absorption in the ultra - violet region at about 350nm than in any other region of the spectrum. This makes the material to be suitable for device s for good absorption of UV radiation that is, it can be used as a UV filters. The spectrum shows moderate transmittance in the visible region. The observed wide transmission in the entire visible region (300 to 1100 nm) enables it to be a potential candid ate for optoelectronic applications . Figure - 5 UV - VIS spectrum of CoS Photoluminescence: The photoluminescence spectrum of CoS nanorods recorded at an excitation wavelength of 320nm at room temperature is shown in figure 6. Cobalt is a transition metal i mpurity. It is a fast diffuser and gives rise to both radiative and nonradiative centres 26 . The PL spectrum comprises two bands of which one broad violet emission peak is observed at 413nm and other strong blue emission is observed at 493nm. Bhattacharjee et al have attributed 418nm peaks to S 2 - vacancy 27 - 29 . Yanagida et al 30 have observed defect related longer wavelength luminescence at about 420nm. It has been reported that 422.87nm peak has been classically termed as self activated luminescence and kn own to be due to the recombination of carriers between S vacancy related donor and valance band 31 . The strong blue peak observed at 493nm may arise due to native point defects. Figure - 6 PL spectrum of CoS Conclusion The powder XRD has confirmed the am orphous nature of the sample. The SEM of as prepared CoS has shown that the CoS has been synthesized as nanorods of uniform distribution with average diameter of 139nm and 0.7µm long. The morphology of the nanorods are nearly spherical head and elongated t o flat tail tip just similar to nail shape. The analysis of EDAX has shown the presence of nearly equal percentage of Cobalt and Sulphur with slight hydrous nature. The hydrous nature is confirmed by FTIR study which has shown the presence of O - H bond. The high absorption in the ultra - violet region at about 350nm makes the material to be suitable for UV filters and the wide transmission in the entire visible region enables it to be a potential candidate for optoelectronic applications . The room temperature photoluminescence at excitation wavelength of 320nm exhibits two bands of which one violet emission observed at 413nm is broad and other blue band at 493nm is comparatively sharp. These emissions are originated from Co vacancy related defects or their comp lexes. Research Journal of Recent Sciences ______ _ _ _______________________________ ______________ _ ___ _____ ISSN 2277 - 2502 Vol. 2 ( ISC - 2012 ), 1 02 - 105 (201 3 ) Res. J. Recent Sci . International Science Congress Association 105 References 1. Jun Zhou, Young Ding, Shao Z. D - eng, Li Gong, Ning S.Xu and Zhong L. wang Three – Dimensional Tungsten Oxide Nanowire networks, Adv.mater , 17, 2107 - 2110 ( 2005 ) 2. 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