Separating light absorption layer from channel in ZnO vertical nanorod arrays based photodetectors for high-performance image sensors

Abstract

Photoconductor arrays with both high responsivity and large ON/OFF ratios are of great importance for the application of image sensors. Herein, a ZnO vertical nanorod array based photoconductor with a light absorption layer separated from the device channel has been designed, in which the photo-generated carriers along the axial ZnO nanorods drive to the external electrodes through nanorod-nanorod junctions in the dense layer at the bottom. This design allows us to enhance the photocurrent with unchanged dark current by increasing the ratio between the ZnO nanorod length and the thickness of the dense layer to achieve both high responsivity and large ON/OFF ratios. As a result, the as-fabricated devices possess a high responsivity of 1.3 × 105 A/W, a high ON/OFF ratio of 790, a high detectivity of 1.3 × 1013 Jones, and a low detectable light intensity of 1 μW/cm2. More importantly, the developed approach enables the integration of ZnO vertical nanorod array based photodetectors as image sensors with uniform device-to-device performance.