Thickness dependent wavelength selective NIR-UV-visible photoresponse in ZnO nanowires and silicon heterojunction

Abstract

In this paper, we report ZnO nanowires (NWs) and silicon-based type-II PN heterojunction for UV–Visible–Infrared self-powered photodetection. The as-grown ZnO NWs were highly crystalline and aligned along the c-axis in the [002] direction revealed in the HRTEM and XRD measurements. The Hall measurements revealed the n-type behavior for ZnO and p-type for p-Si with carrier concentrations of 4.09 × 1016 cm−3 and 1.38 × 1017 cm−3, respectively. The depletion widths were estimated to be ∼35 nm and ∼120 nm, respectively for p-Si and n-ZnO NWs. The Ag/n-ZnO NWs/p-Si/Ag PN heterojunction showed large photoresponse, even at zero bias, under the illumination of commercially available UV–Visible–NIR LEDs, thus acting as a self-powered photodetector. It was interesting to observe that the photoresponse was dependent on the growth time and hence the thickness of ZnO NWs thin film. A maximum zero bias responsivity of ∼0.1 A/W at green (515 nm) was observed and was large for the junction with thicker ZnO NWs film (5 h growth), compared with thinner (3 h growth) device under IR (950 nm) LED illumination, however, it was observed otherwise for UV (395 nm) LED. This suggests that tuning the thickness of the ZnO NWs thin film results in the wavelength selective photoresponse, consequently, paving the way towards UV blind IR-visible photodetector based on ZnO NWs. The transient short circuit current (Isc vs t) and open circuit voltage (Voc vs t) properties showed fast and large responses under periodic illumination of all LEDs (UV–Vis–NIR). The response was observed to depend on the intensity of light and the maximum Voc comes out to be ∼102 mV and Isc ∼5.58 μA, under the illumination of a red laser diode.