Detection performance of flower-like hydrothermally synthesized ZnO in silicon-type photodetector

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a versatile compound or metal oxide with a wide range of applications across various industries such as electronics, optoelectronics, and gas sensors, etc. A simple hydrothermal method was used to synthesize ZnO flower-like structures in this study. The synthesized ZnO structures were analyzed by x-ray diffractometer (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). We used ZnO structures as an interfacial layer for a Schottky-type silicon-based photodetector. While Au and Al metals were employed as metallic and ohmic contacts, respectively, p-Si was utilized as a semiconductor and substrate. Thus, Au/ZnO/p-Si sandwich was successfully fabricated and tested by current-voltage (I-V) measurements under dark and various light power illumination densities from 10 mW cm−2 to 150 mW cm−2 as well as the various wavelengths in the case of same power. The I-V characteristics were used to determine the diode and photodetection parameters. The fabricated heterostructure exhibited 77.51 mA W−1 responsivity, 1.30 × 1010 Jones specific detectivity, and 26.33% external quantum efficiency (EQE) values. © 2024 IOP Publishing Ltd.