Synthesis and Morphological Studies of Cerium Oxide-Zinc Oxide as a Potential Heterostructured Material

ZnO is a versatile metal oxide owing to its binding energy of 6 meV and direct band gap of 3.3 eV. The microstructure-electronic properties of ZnO have been altered to create an intentional effect that is beneficial for many engineering applications. New form of functional materials made of ZnO-based heterostructured materials have been explored for overcoming the limitations of conventional ZnO. The multi-phase ZnO heterostructured materials allow the fine-tuning of the band structure while extending the electron–hole separation. Such effects are required for performance enhancement of photocatalytic and photonic materials. This paper reported the synthesis of CeO2–ZnO heterostructured materials containing different CeO2 to ZnO molar ratios (0.1:100, 1:100, and 10:100) via a nanofabrication technique that combined the citrate gelation complexation reaction and solid-phase sintering up to 1200 °C for 5 consecutive hours. The microstructure evolutions of CeO2–ZnO materials and establishment of the CeO2–ZnO heterojunctions were investigated using SEM and FESEM-EDX analyses. The conversion of raw materials and the phase analysis were confirmed using XRD.