Thermal calcination fabrication of porous tin dioxide for new flexible ultraviolet photodetectors

Highlights: • Porous SnO₂ (Tin oxide) have been successfully synthesized by using in-situ calcination precursors. • We fabricated SnO₂ flexible ultraviolet photodetectors successfully. • The flexible photodetectors have high flexible, lightweight, low-cost and high stability. • The photoelectric properties were studied upon 254 nm and 365 nm ultraviolet light. Porous tin dioxide (SnO₂) have been successfully synthesized by using in-situ thermal calcination precursors at different calcination conditions, including different calcination temperature, different calcination times, and zone heating. The as-synthesized SnO₂ samples were characterized by XRD, FESEM, TEM, UV–vis DRS and fluorescence spectrometry. Flexible photodetectors were then fabricated on PET (polyethylene terephthalate) substrate. The porous SnO₂-based flexible ultraviolet photodetectors have high flexible, lightweight, low-cost and high stability. Especially, the flexible device exhibits linear photocurrent behaviors and good sensitivity to ultraviolet light at wavelengths of 254 nm and 365 nm. Our result should be useful for creating high efficiency optoelectronic devices.