Structural and electronic properties of PVA with green synthesized ZnO NCs for electronic device applications

In this work, pure poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and PVA–ZnO nanocomposite (NC) films were fabricated via solvent casting technique. ZnO nanoparticles were incorporated into the PVA matrix at varying concentrations (0.1–0.5 wt%). Structural and electronic characteristics were systematically analyzed. SEM micrographs revealed an irregular layered morphology with ZnO nanoparticles dispersed within the polymer matrix. Elemental analysis via energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) confirmed the presence of ZnO across different loadings. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) determined the interplanar spacing (d-spacing) to be 0.32 nm. Dielectric measurements indicated that both resistance and conductivity values increased with frequency, and exhibited a dependence on ZnO content, suggesting enhanced charge transport behavior with higher nanoparticle incorporation. Further, The dielectric constant was found out to be consistently distributed in low frequency range of 1 kHz to 3 kHz. The dielectric constant and loss characteristics of PVA-ZnO NCs were estimated and exhibited small variation in dielectric loss and resonance behavior lies in the range of 31 kHz to 100 kHz, respectively. The movement of charged ions were responsible for conductivity, as indicated by the real and imaginary electric moduli. The ZnO weight percentage was found to have improved conductivity in AC electrical conductivity studies. The resistive switching behavior of PVA-ZnO NCs films were noted by the I-V characteristics of these films. The P-V Hysteresis analysis confirmed that PVA-ZnO 0.5 wt% shows butterfly hysteresis loop, the remanent polarization was found to be 13.5 μC/cm 2 which was suitable for thin film capacitor applications. Van der Pauw technique was used to determine Hall effect parameters to study the semiconducting behavior of PVA-ZnO NCs films.