Conduction Mechanism of Polyaniline/Reduced Graphene Oxide/Ag2O Nanocomposite

Polyaniline/reduced graphene oxide/Ag
₂
O (PANI/rGO/Ag
₂
O) nanocomposite was synthesized using in-situ polymerization technique and characterization was done as XRD, SEM, Raman, FTIR, XPS, UV-vis, and I-V analyses. The morphology as featured by the SEM analysis shows the spherical Ag
₂
O nanoparticles (159-210 nm) anchored on the rGO/Ag
₂
O sheets. The XRD results indicate the presence of Ag
₂
O crystal planes. The D-band Raman peak at 1342 cm
^-1
attributes to C-C bond vibration suggesting the presence of graphene. The XPS spectrum show the O(1s), N(1s), Ag(3d), and C(1s) core orbital peaks at 529.2 eV, 399.3 eV, 366.5 eV, and 283.1 eV binding energies correspondingly. The reverse bias I-V curve shows non-linear nature and high current for PRGAg120 and diode characteristic but lower current for PRGAg160. The I-V characteristic in forward bias demonstrated non-linear current for PRGAg120 and a similar characteristic for PRGAg160 but with a lesser current.