Tuning of photoluminescence colour in zinc oxide nanoparticles via lithium doping

Abstract Zinc acetate dihydrate, lithium hydroxide monohydrate, and anhydrous ethanol as starting compounds are used for the synthesis of Li containing zinc oxide nanoparticles with different emission colours. The emission colour depends on addition of lithium hydroxide and changes from cyan to green-yellow. Photoluminescence spectra of synthesized nanoparticles are recalculated into CIExyY colorimetric model which characterizes the emission colour considering the whole distribution of intensities of the obtained spectra in visible region. This study gives an overlook of the changes which occur when changing the amount of dopant in the process of synthesis. In addition to colour characterization, nanoparticle size distributions and aggregation are discussed. The results demonstrate that the applied method is able to produce lithium-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles with tuneable emission within the range of about 60 nm.