Preparation and Photoelectric Properties of Silver Nanowire/ZnO Thin Film Ultraviolet Detector

Ultraviolet (UV) detectors have important applications in many fields. ZnO is an excellent semiconductor material for the preparation of UV detectors because of its large direct gap in forbidden bandwidth, its intrinsic response band in the UV region, and its high exciton binding energy. In this paper, high-performance ZnO thin films with the optically advantageous nonpolar structure were prepared by using an atomic layer deposition, and the dominant crystal plane gradually changes from the amorphous phase to the (100) crystal plane. The conventional photoconductor structure ZnO UV detector was enhanced by the surface plasmon exciton effect of Ag nanostructure. When the operating voltage is 5 V and the response light is 350 nm, there is a maximum optical responsiveness of up to 131 A/W. The UV/visible rejection ratio can reach 1824 times. When the ZnO thin film deposition thickness is 400 deposition cycles and about 72 nm, the ZnO thin film UV detector obtains the highest responsiveness (5 V, 365 nm) of 365 A/W. Comparing the photovoltaic performance of the ZnO thin-film detector with the enhanced ZnO thin-film detector and its optimal response wavelength, it is found that the enhanced ZnO thin-film detector increased the photoresponse value by about 100 times. The optimal response wavelength in the UV region is blue-shifted, and the UV-visible rejection ratio and optical response rate are significantly improved. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]