6–10 Jul 2026
University of the Western Cape
Africa/Johannesburg timezone
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Determination of Energy Bandgap of ZnS Nanoparticles Using UV-Vis Data and Tauc Plot.

7 Jul 2026, 17:20
1h 20m
Great Hall (University of the Western Cape)

Great Hall

University of the Western Cape

Poster Presentation Track A - Physics of Condensed Matter and Materials Poster Session 1

Speaker

Mr Keamogetswe Motiang (Northwest university)

Description

Zinc sulphide (ZnS) has been widely utilized in solar cells as a buffer layer or light scatterers due to its excellent chemical and physical. Zinc sulphide nanoparticles (NPs) were characterised using UV-Vis spectroscopy to determine their energy band gap. The absorption spectra were obtained in the wavelength range 300 – 800 nm. The absorption spectra showed maximum absorption just below 300 nm with a long absorption tail. The Beer-Lambert law was then used to determine the absorption coefficient of the NPs. Thereafter, the Tauc plot method was used to determine the energy band gap of the ZnS NPs.

The absorption peak around 300 nm is due to the nanocrystalline nature of the ZnS and consistent with large direct band gap semiconductor. The long absorption tail above 300 nm can be attributed to light scattering by the ZnS NPs. This then suggests that ZnS NPs can be used as light scatterers in solar cells to improve light absorption. An energy band gap of 3.79 eV was obtained for the synthesized ZnS NPs. This energy band gap matches very well with reported literature.

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Author

Mr Keamogetswe Motiang (Northwest university)

Co-author

Mpilo Dlamini (North-West University)

Presentation materials

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