In this work, a nanoscale device
architecture is demonstrated for
a UV photodetector application on sapphire (0001), incorporating the
plasmonic hybrid nanoparticles (HNPs), graphene quantum dots (GQDs),
and titanium oxide (TiO2) for the first time. The hybrid
GQDs/TiO2/HNPs photodetector exhibits the photocurrent
of 1.58 × 10–5 A under the 1.64 mW/mm2 of 275 nm illumination at 10 V, which is around two order increase
from the bare TiO2 device. The proposed architecture demonstrates
a low dark current of ∼1 × 10–10 A at
10 V and thus the device demonstrates an excellent photo to dark current
ratio along with the improved rise and fall time on the order of several
hundred millisecond. The enhanced performance of device architecture
is attributed to the efficient utilization of localized surface plasmon
resonance (LSPR) induced hot carriers as well as scattered photons
from the plasmonic HNPs that are fully encapsulated by the photoactive
TiO2 layers. Furthermore, the addition of GQDs on the TiO2 can offer an additional photon absorption pathway. The proposed
hybrid architecture of GQDs/TiO2/HNPs demonstrates the
integration of the photon absorption and carrier transfer properties
of plasmonic HNPs, GQDs, and TiO2 for an enhanced ultraviolet
(UV) photoresponse. The photocurrent enhancement mechanisms of the
hybrid device architecture are thoroughly investigated based on the
finite-difference time domain (FDTD) simulation along with the energy
band analysis. This work demonstrates a great potential of the hybrid
device architecture for high-performance UV photodetectors.
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