BALKAN PHYSICS LETTERS ©Bogazici University Press 23 February 2011 BPL, 19, 191026, pp. 232 – 239, (2011) FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BORON DOPED ZIRCONIUM OXIDE NANOFIBERS I. USLU Department of Chemistry Education, Selcuk University, Konya, TURKEY M. K. OZTURK Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Arts, Gazi University, Ankara, TURKEY T. TUNC Science Education Department, Faculty of Education, Aksaray University, Aksaray, TURKEY T.C. KARABULUT Science Department, faculty of Science, Ankara University, Ankara, TURKEY S. KESKIN Central Laboratory, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, TURKEY Abstract : Recently, considerable attention has been focused on zirconium oxide (ZrO 2 ) which exhibits many desirable structural and electronic properties and has been used in many applications. For example it is a very attractive and promising material for low-voltage and short-wavelength electro-optical devices such as light emitting diodes and laser diodes; it also has other applications such as gas sensors and varistors [1-4]. This study is related to the preparation of boron doped ZrO 2 material. The first step was the preparation of composite by mixing zirconium acetate with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) at a suitable temperature [5]. The resulting composite polymer was doped with boron using boric acid as boron source and then electrospun giving nano fibers. Finally, the resulting nano fibers were subjected to a thermal treatment at 250 o C, 500 o C, 800 o C to elucidate their morphological properties. The conductivity of the nano fibers obtained was measured with four probe technique and the boron supported polymer was observed to have a higher conductivity. The Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) results indicate that the glass transition (Tg) and melting temperatures (Tm) showed great change with the addition of boron and boron doped fibers were observed to degrade at higher temperatures. The SEM appearance of the fibers showed that the addition of boron resulted in the formation of cross linked bright surfaced fibers. Keywords: zirconium oxide, polyvinyl alcohol, boron doped, electrospun, nanofibers.