Fabrication and Characterization of CuO Nanofibers using Nanofiber Generator

Improvised electro-spin coating unit was designed, fabricated and optimized to fabricate nano-fibers. Composite nano fibers of CuO (dissolved in PVA) were fabricated using this unit. The prepared fibers were annealed at three different temperatures (400 °C, 500 °C and 600 °C) using muffle furnace, all the continuous fibers were broken down to nano crystals. The structural and composition of the nano crystals were analyzed using XRD and EDAX measurements. The X-ray diffraction peaks revealed that the crystals are monoclinic crystalline structure. The composition of the crystal is confirmed as CuO from the percentage of constituents of Copper and Oxygen in EADX results. The optical properties of the fibers were studied by using spectrophotometer. The optical band gap energy is found to be nearly 2 eV. The surface morphology of the crystal was studied using FESEM analysis. The crystals are found to be defect free and they are excellent material for high sensitive optoelectronic sensors.