Plasmon‐Induced Pyro‐Phototronic Effect Enhancement in Self‐Powered UV–Vis Detection with a ZnO/CuO p–n Junction Device

Abstract

It is important to detect light of low power density sensitively and fast for the application of optical communication, environmental monitoring, astronomy, and national securities. However, ZnO-based photodetectors exhibit long decay time owing to the persistent photoconductivity (PPC) and are hard to detect light with low power density efficiently. Here, a practical strategy is utilized to improve the performance of ZnO-based photodetectors by coupling the pyroelectric effect of ZnO with localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of Au nanoparticles subtly. Hence, a self-powered photodetector is demonstrated, which is integrated with ZnO/CuO coreshell nanorods and Au nanoparticles to detect UV to vis light. This selfpowered photodetector achieves fast and sensitive detection of UV when power density is 68 nW cm −2 . The performance is significantly improved than the photodetectors without Au nanoparticles. The optimal responsivity and detectivity under the same power density of UV at 325 nm are 1.4 × 10 −4 A W −1 and 3.3 × 10 11 Jones. Response/recovery time is remarkably shortened to ≈10 ms. The results indicate that the material configurations and design concept make the device applicable for self-powered, high-performance photodetectors, and provide further promoted understanding of LSPR enhanced performance of photodetectors.

LSPR‐Enhanced Pyro‐Phototronic Effect for UV Detection with an Ag–ZnO Schottky Junction Device

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automobile exhaust monitoring, missile tracking, fire monitoring, etc. [1][2][3][4] Generally, the performance of UV detector is strongly depended on the sensing materials, and the wide bandgap semiconductors, which include GaN, SiC, ZnO, MoS 2 , InSe, etc, [5][6][7][8][9] are the preferred candidates owing to the high selectivity for UV light. Among them, ZnO is a prior choice for fabricating UV photodetectors at room temperature owing to the high electron mobility, [10] suitable bandgap (3.37 eV), high exciton binding energy (60 meV), [11] and low-cost preparation process with low cost.

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Recent progress on Schottky sensors based on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides

“…This strategy has great potential to achieve an enhancement in the device performance. 147,148 Coupling noble metals in the nanoscale and 2D TMDs can enhance the performance of sensors signicantly. Sun et al 149 demonstrated that a photodetector modied by Ag nanocubes exhibited a prominent performance at a low operating potential.…”

Synthesis and comparative study of the structural and optical properties of binary ZnO-based composites for environmental applications

“…Therefore, ZnO/MO heterostructures have attracted increasing interest. [29][30][31] Many physical and chemical synthesis methods are used to prepare heterostructured systems, including sol-gel, hydrothermal, co-precipitation and spray pyrolysis. A. E. Ramírez et al 32 are synthesized mixed photocatalysts from transition metal oxides (TMOs), such as Cr 2 O 3 , MnO 2 , FeO, CoO, NiO, Cu 2 O, CuO, and ZnO by the sol-gel method.…”