Zinc oxide and rare earth (Gd, Nd, and Sm) doped zinc oxide thin film has been synthesized chemically by facile and cost-effective SILAR method. The impact of rare-earth doping on structural, morphological, and optical properties of ZnO films has been investigated using various characterization techniques. The stylus profiler method is employed to find the thickness of the films. The doping of rare earth elements reduces the thickness of the films. The XRD and SEM results suggest that the rare-earth metal is successfully incorporated into the ZnO lattice. The elemental mapping and EDS results show that homogeneous scatter of zinc (Zn), oxygen (O), gadolinium (Gd), neodymium (Nd), and samarium (Sm) compounds are found in the doped films. The transmission and bandgap of the films are enhanced due to doping. The doped ZnO films have exhibited significant enhancement in ammonia gas sensors at room temperature. Nd doping is effective than the Sm doped ZnO and Gd doped ZnO to sense the ammonia in terms of recovery time, response time, and sensitivity.

氧化锌和稀土（Gd、Nd 和 Sm）掺杂的氧化锌薄膜已通过简便且具有成本效益的 SILAR 方法化学合成。已经使用各种表征技术研究了稀土掺杂对 ZnO 薄膜的结构、形态和光学特性的影响。使用触针轮廓仪方法来确定薄膜的厚度。稀土元素的掺杂降低了薄膜的厚度。XRD 和 SEM 结果表明稀土金属成功地结合到 ZnO 晶格中。元素映射和 EDS 结果表明，在掺杂薄膜中发现了锌 (Zn)、氧 (O)、钆 (Gd)、钕 (Nd) 和钐 (Sm) 化合物的均匀散射。由于掺杂增强了薄膜的透射率和带隙。在室温下，掺杂的 ZnO 薄膜在氨气传感器中表现出显着的增强。在恢复时间、响应时间和灵敏度方面，Nd 掺杂比 Sm 掺杂的 ZnO 和 Gd 掺杂的 ZnO 更有效地检测氨。