INVESTIGATION THE SYNTHESIS, STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF METHYLCELLULOSE/TiO₂ POLYMERIC NANOCOMPOSITE FILMS FOR OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICES

Flexible polymer nanocomposite composed of organic methylcellulose (MC) and semiconducting titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) films were successfully prepared. The energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) recorded the structure characteristics of the films, proving that MC/TiO 2 nanocomposite were successfully synthesized. The EDX showed that this composite was composed of (28.55% C, 50.90% O, and 20.55% Ti), which displayed the chemical composition of MC/TiO 2 . Moreover, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) shows the TiO 2 nanoparticles are loaded homogenously in the nanocomposite films. With increasing the TiO 2 , the FTIR intensity of most peaks gradually decreased which may be attributed to that titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO 2 NPs) were formed on the methylcellulose (MC). The UV spectrophotometer records the data of absorption (A) for the MC and MC/TiO 2 films between 200[Formula: see text]nm and 1100[Formula: see text]nm at the ambient temperature. Using Tauc’s relation, the linear/nonlinear optical characteristics of MC and MC/TiO 2 films were computed. By mixing MC with 2%, 4%, and 6% TiO 2 , the Urbach energy of the MC is enhanced from 1.77[Formula: see text]eV to 1.85, 2.02, and 2.34[Formula: see text]eV, correspondingly, while the TiO 2 reduced the energy gap of MC from 5.17[Formula: see text]eV to 3.59, 3.52, or 3.43[Formula: see text]eV. Moreover, the carbon cluster increased from 44 for MC to 92, 95, and 101 for MC mixed by 2%, 4%, and 6% TiO 2 . This study found the MC/TiO 2 hybrid films can potentially be used as optical materials for flexible electronic devices.