Electric Field Dependent Photocurrent Decay Length in Single Lead Sulfide Nanowire Field Effect Transistors

Abstract

We determined the minority carrier diffusion length to be ∼1 μm in single PbS nanowire field effect transistors by scanning photocurrent microscopy. PbS nanowires grown by the vapor-liquid-solid method were p-type with hole mobilities up to 49 cm(2)/(V s). We measured a photoresponse time faster than 14 μs with near-unity charge separation efficiency at the contacts. For the first time, we also observed a field-dependent photocurrent decay length, indicating a drift dominant carrier transport at high bias.