Correlation of enhanced photocurrent with structural and optical properties of Ag–ZnO nanocomposites synthesized by a facile chemical route

Abstract In this paper, we report the synthesis of pure ZnO and plasmonic Ag–ZnO nanocomposites by a facile precipitation method. X-ray diffraction analysis is done for the investigation of phase purity of the synthesized samples. The crystallite size and lattice strain of the samples are obtained by Debye-Scherrer and Williamson–Hall analysis. The UV–Vis absorption spectra of the Ag–ZnO nanocomposites reveal an increased optical absorption in the UV region, which suggests that Ag–ZnO nanocomposite can be used as a UV detector. Furthermore, I–V characteristics of the samples have been measured in an applied bias range of -2V–2V under dark and UV illumination (λ = 365 nm). A significant increase in the photocurrent and a three-fold enhancement in the responsivity values in 13.7 wt % Ag–ZnO nanocomposite as compared to the bare ZnO are attributed to the localized surface plasmon resonance phenomena and strain reduction.