Effects of Morphological and Structural Properties of Zinc Oxide Nanostructures on the Performance of an Ultraviolet Detector

Abstract

This study proposed cost-effective metal-oxide photoconductors using a glass substrate; three different ZnO nanostructures were used as sensing materials. ZnO-sensing materials were fabricated in thin films and one-dimensional nanorods (NRs). ZnO thin films were fabricated using the ultrasonic spray pyrolysis method, while ZnO nanorods were fabricated by employing the hydrothermal technique. The results reveal that ZnO thin film-sensing materials exhibit higher performance than nanorods. The results also show that ZnO thin films have the highest performance (responsivity: 8884 A/W; detectivity: 6.7 x 1012 Jones; sensitivity: 403%; rise time: 12 s; recovery time: 34 s). The better performance of the ZnO thin films’ UV detector to the higher ratio of photocurrent to dark current. ZnO NRs-based devices have a higher dark current, possibly because of the large number of crystal defects found in ZnO NRs, as indicated by defective emissions in the photoluminescence spectra.