Self-Assembled Al Nanostructure/ZnO Quantum Dot Heterostructures for High Responsivity and Fast UV Photodetector

Highlights High performance Al nanostructures/ZnO quantum dots heterostructure photodetectors with a controllable geometry of the Al nanostructures are demonstrated. Light utilization of the photoactive layers is significantly boosted with the Al nanostructures. The light confinement effect is inher...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sisi Liu, Ming-Yu Li, Jianbing Zhang, Dong Su, Zhen Huang, Sundar Kunwar, Jihoon Lee
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2020-05-01
Series:Nano-Micro Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40820-020-00455-9
Description
Summary:Highlights High performance Al nanostructures/ZnO quantum dots heterostructure photodetectors with a controllable geometry of the Al nanostructures are demonstrated. Light utilization of the photoactive layers is significantly boosted with the Al nanostructures. The light confinement effect is inherently determined by the geometries of the Al nanostructures. Abstract Light confinement induced by spontaneous near-surface resonance is inherently determined by the location and geometry of metallic nanostructures (NSs), offering a facile and effective approach to break through the limitation of the light-mater interaction within the photoactive layers. Here, we demonstrate high-performance Al NS/ZnO quantum dots (Al/ZnO) heterostructure UV photodetectors with controllable morphologies of the self-assembled Al NSs. The Al/ZnO heterostructures exhibit a superior light utilization than the ZnO/Al heterostructures, and a strong morphological dependence of the Al NSs on the optical properties of the heterostructures. The inter-diffusion of Al atoms into ZnO matrixes is of a great benefit for the carrier transportation. Consequently, the optimal photocurrent of the Al/ZnO heterostructure photodetectors is significantly increased by 275 times to ~ 1.065 mA compared to that of the pristine ZnO device, and an outstanding photoresponsivity of 11.98 A W−1 is correspondingly achieved under 6.9 mW cm−2 UV light illumination at 10 V bias. In addition, a relatively fast response is similarly witnessed with the Al/ZnO devices, paving a path to fabricate the high-performance UV photodetectors for applications.
ISSN:2311-6706
2150-5551