Williamson-Hall analysis in evaluation of lattice strain and the density of lattice dislocation for nanometer scaled ZnSe and ZnSe:Cu particles

Undoped and Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticle (NPs) were prepared and grown hydrothermally in aqueous media assisted by microwave irradiation (MWIR) at different synthesis conditions of pH and MWIR times. In the mentioned process, sodium hydroxide (NaBH₄), used for preparing selenium ions source with dissolving it and selenium powder in deionized water. To investigate the structural aspects and nanoparticles morphology, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used. According to the results of XRD, no displacement was seen in the position of XRD peaks of ZnSe nanoparticles by altering the pH and microwave irradiation time. XRD analysis demonstrated cubic zinc blende NPs and TEM images indicated round shape morphology of them. Depending to the microwave irradiation time, upon the XRD outputs, the size of the synthesized NPs were in the range of 1.54–2.18 nm. In this research, for samples synthesized at different pHs (= 8, 10.2, 11.2 and 12.2), at two microwave irradiation time of 0 and 6 min, and also at the presence of Cu-dopant (with the contents of 0, 0.1,0.75 and 1.5%), structural characteristics such as dislocation density(δ), lattice strain(ε), size of nanoparticles (D) and full width at half maximum (FWHM:β_hkl) have been evaluated upon the Scherrer and Williamson-Hall methods, in which undoped and ZnSe:Cu 0.1% synthesized at pH = 11.2 have the best crystalline quality; such results for the optimum samples, introduce them as promising materials in optoelectronic devices. The results of structural features obtained from Scherrer and Williamson-Hall approaches are highly intercorrelated and show the same trends with the variation of synthesis conditions.