The effects of divalent and trivalent dopants on the luminescence properties of ZnO fine particle with oxygen vacancies

[Display omitted] •Oxygen vacancy successfully controlled by introducing various dopants into ZnO.•Strong correlation between doping content and the amount of oxygen vacancy.•DLE and NBE intensity can be controlled by the tunned excitation wavelength. The engineering, various factors, and mechanism responsible for emission and high intensity of ZnO luminescence are well developed. Only a few researchers investigate the role of oxygen vacancy on the luminescence properties of doped ZnO. The objective of this research is to synthesize the ZnO fine particle with tailored oxygen vacancy by doping with 5 at.% of divalent and trivalent dopants, i.e., magnesium (ZnO:Mg2+), calcium (ZnO:Ca2+), gadolinium (ZnO:Gd3+), and lanthanum (ZnO:La3+) using spray pyrolysis method. The samples prepared at 700 °C with 5 l/min carrier gas flow characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The oxygen vacancy was successfully tuned by introducing various doping into ZnO fine particles. It is found that the oxygen vacancy responsible for the increase of DLE intensity (IDLE) on the deconvoluted of PL spectra. When the ZnO fine particle doped with trivalent ions (Gd3+, La3+), the contribution of NBE intensity (INBE) is higher than IDLE. Important phenomena also observed when the excitation wavelength was tuned. The contribution of IDLE and INBE changes, lead to control the luminescence properties.