Recent advances in one-dimensional electrospun semiconductor nanostructures for UV photodetector applications: A review

Abstract

The 1D semiconductor nanomaterials (NMs) have gained significant interest due to their unique structural features, large specific surface areas, exceptional electronic, optical, and thermal properties, good electrical conductivity, excellent mechanical properties, extensible surface functionality, and other excellent properties as photoelectric materials. Electrospinning is one of the versatile methods for producing 1D NMs with controlled morphologies (e.g., nanofibers, nanotubes, nanobelts, core-shell structures, and so on), designed alignments, high porosity, designed structures, and adjustable mechanics, which hold great promise in a variety of fields such as photoelectric devices, catalysis, energy storage, sensors, and capacitors. Ultraviolet photodetectors (UV PDs) are semiconductor devices that have a photoelectric conversion function and are used in myriad applications, including environmental monitoring, optical communication, biological sensing, and many more. They also help to accelerate the development of nanoelectronics and nano-optoelectronics. In this review, we introduced the fundamentals of electrospinning as well as strategies for preparing electrospun 1D semiconductor NMs with diverse structures such as porous, hollow, hierarchical, and aligned nanostructures for UV PD applications. Furthermore, we present a thorough review of the strategies for constructing PDs using pristine, surface-functionalized, or heterojunction-structured electrospun 1D semiconductor NMs, as well as their types, structures, and properties. Finally, a brief overview, current challenges, and future prospects of electrospun 1D NMs for UV PD applications are discussed, and some perspectives are presented. This review is expected to provide guidelines for designing and building novel high-performance PDs based on electrospun 1D NMs.