Interface Analysis of CuO/ZnO Heterojunction for Optoelectronic Applications: An Experimental and Simulation Study

Abstract

Material interfaces are essential building blocks for a wide variety of emerging technologies. Particularly, well‐defined and optimized heterostructures serve as the foundation for developing materials for innovative optoelectronic applications. The distinctive features of heterojunctions has recently attracted the attention of the optoelectronics community, prompting a rise in the construction of modern devices. We present a solution‐based method for developing a heterojunction made of copper oxide nanorods coated with zinc oxide thin films. Coating ZnO thin films on vertically oriented CuO nanorods results in the development of a ZnO/CuO heterojunction configuration, which exhibits outstanding optoelectronic capabilities like broadband absorption, white light emission. Additionally, systematic ab‐initio computations have been done in order to comprehend the impact on various optical and electrical properties. It is observed that defects play a very crucial role in determining the quantum efficiency as well as improved visible to NIR absorption. Moreover, formation of energy levels near conduction bands in the presence of vacancies lead to broad absorption in the UV‐Visible region and therefore greater than 60% quantum efficiency over the range 390 nm to 800 nm is observed. Therefore, the presented work serves as the foundation for additional design and optimization techniques for oxide heterojunctions and emerging applications.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.