Cu₂O–Au nanowire field-effect phototransistor for hot carrier transfer enhanced photodetection

In metal-semiconductor hybrid nanostructures, metal absorbs incident photons and generates hot carriers. The hot carriers are injected into the adjacent semiconductor and subsequently contribute to photocurrent. This process increases the conversion efficiency of optoelectronic devices and provides a new path of photodetectors. In this work, we report an enhanced photodetector by hot holes transfer, which is based on Au nanoparticles decorated p-type Cu₂O nanowires. The photodetector achieves an enhanced photo-responsivity up to 0.314 A W⁻¹, a higher detectivity of 3.7 × 10¹⁰ Jones. The response time and external quantum efficiency of the Cu₂O–Au nanowires photodetector are 3.7 times faster and 18.2 times higher than that of the Cu₂O nanowires, respectively. The findings indicate that Cu₂O–Au nanowires would be a promising candidate in developing novel plasmonic hot carrier devices. (paper)