Armchair zinc chalcogenide nanoribbons for high-performance photodetectors: A computational study

In this study, we employ density functional theory and non-equilibrium Green's function methods to investigate the electronic and photoelectric response properties of one-dimensional hexagonal ZnX (X = S, Se) nanoribbons (NRs). Remarkably, armchair (ARM) NRs demonstrate superior photoelectric response in the visible and near-ultraviolet regions. It is worth noting that for all considered photon energies, the photocurrent exhibits a cosine dependence on the polarization angle, which is consistent with the photogalvanic effect. when the width of NR is eight atoms, the zinc blende ZnSe/ARM NR-based device achieves a maximum extinction ratio of 63.9 at the photon energy of 3.0 eV. The significant photocurrent and high polarization sensitivity suggest the potential of ZnX NRs for applications in optoelectronic devices, particularly in visible and near-ultraviolet light detection.