RESEARCH PAPER An investigation into the influence of zinc precursor on the microstructural, photoluminescence, and gas-sensing properties of ZnO nanoparticles Ariadne C. Catto • Luı ´s F. da Silva • Maria I. B. Bernardi • Ma ´ximo S. Li • Elson Longo • Paulo N. Lisboa-Filho • Otaciro R. Nascimento • Valmor R. Mastelaro Received: 16 May 2014 / Accepted: 14 November 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract This paper describes the effect of different zinc precursors, acetate, oxide, and nitrate, on the structure, microstructure, photoluminescence, and ozone gas-sensing properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. Transmission and scanning electron microscopy, and BET surface area show a dependence of the particle size and surface area with the precursor type. The ZnO sample synthesized from zinc nitrate shows the best photoluminescence (PL) emission. Although electron paramagnetic resonance shows in all samples the presence of a g-signal attributed to oxygen vacancies, it is not possible to correlate the presence of these defects with PL emission behavior. Furthermore, ZnO sample synthesized from zinc nitrate also shows the best ozone gas-sensing response, however, our results do not allow correlating the best PL emission in the visible region with the best sensor response to ozone gas. Keywords Zinc oxide Á Nanocrystalline materials Á Microstructure Á Photoluminescence Á Gas sensor Introduction Zinc oxide (ZnO), one of the most studied semicon- ductors, displays a wide band-gap, 3.37 eV, and a hexagonal wurtzite structure. Pure and/or doped ZnO has been successfully used in biomedical applications (Zhang et al. 2013), dye-sensitized solar cells (Man- ikandan et al. 2014a, Manikandan et al. 2014b), photocatalysis (Milao et al. 2012; Kenanakis et al. 2013), photovoltaic applications (Malgas et al. 2014), and gas sensor devices (Acuautla et al. 2014; Gurav et al. 2014; Mortezaali and Moradi 2014). The ZnO compound has been considered a potential gas detection device because it exhibits a good chemical sensitivity to different analyte gases, fast response time, and a shorter recovery time (Katsarakis et al. 2003; Wu et al. 2008; Kortidis et al. 2009). Different studies proposed a relationship between ZnO gas sensing, morphology, and photolumines- cence properties (Choppali and Gorman 2007; Ke- nanakis et al. 2007; Bai et al. 2010; Chang et al. 2010; Devan et al. 2012; Qin et al. 2014). Likewise, the correlation between defects such as oxygen vacan- cies and zinc interstitials and the gas sensor response and photoluminescence properties has also been A. C. Catto Á M. I. B. Bernardi Á M. S. Li Á O. R. Nascimento Á V. R. Mastelaro Instituto de Fı ´sica de Sa ˜o Carlos, USP, Sa ˜o Carlos, SP, Brazil A. C. Catto Á P. N. Lisboa-Filho Grupo de Materiais Avanc ¸ados (MAv), UNESP, Bauru, SP, Brazil L. F. da Silva (&) Á E. Longo LIEC, Instituto de Quı ´mica, UNESP, Araraquara, SP, Brazil e-mail: lfsilva83@gmail.com 123 J Nanopart Res (2014) 16:2760 DOI 10.1007/s11051-014-2760-0