Study on preparation and structural characteristics of ZnFe₂O₄ nanocrystalline

In this paper, zinc ferrite nanocrystallines are prepared by the coincided coprecipitation and the hydro-thermal method. XRD, DRS, FT-IR and TEM techniques have been used to characterize the structural and spectral features of the obtained samples, whereas surface photovoltage characteristics of the nanocrystallines are deeply investigated by the surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SPS). The results show that the ZnFe₂O₄ nanocrystallines with spinel structure have a narrower energy-gap, and the particles are uniform with narrow size distribution. The SPS results indicate that the ZnFe₂O₄ nanocrystallines show obvious surface and quantum confined effect with a certain capability for capturing the electron, and the external electric field is proven to have a strong effect on the photovoltaic response while applying the external positive electric field. It is found that when a negative electric field reached a certain value, the external electric field of photovoltaic response will prevail