Structural, morphological and optical studies of sol-gel engineered Sm3+ activated ZnO thin films for photocatalytic applications

Rare earth (RE) ions activated ZnO thin films were prepared via sol-gel route and the thin films be categorized by various techniques. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies display the hexagonal wurtzite structure of the prepared thin films. Scherrer's formula was utilized to calculate the average crystallite size (25–40 nm) with different Sm3+ concentrations. The optical energy gap was calculated by Diffused Reflectance spectra (DRS). The Acid Red (AR) dye was degraded under ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation with ZnO: Sm3+(1-9 mol %) nanostructured thin films and the highest photodegradation (95 %) was observed for 7 mol % of Sm3+ doped ZnO catalyst. All the obtained results suggest that prepared material could be a prominent material as photocatalyst.