Study on Ultraviolet Photodetector modified by Au Nanoparticles on ZnO Nanowires

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a direct wideband gap semiconductor material with a band gap of 3.37eV at room temperature. It can absorb ultraviolet light with a wavelength shorter than 385nm and is light blind to visible light. Using different growth methods or different growth conditions, the final prepared ZnO nanomaterials have different growth structures, which can be presented as nano dots, nanowires, nanoribbons, nano rings, nano tubes and other structures. In this paper, the ultraviolet (UV) photodetector (PD) of ZnO nanowires (NWs) was first prepared by wet etching and hydrothermal method. Then, gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) was used as metal nanoparticles with surface modification to characterize the performance of the PD, and the study of NPs modification on the performance of the detector was explored. After testing, the NPs modification improved the responsivity by about 12 times and the absorption was also improved to a certain extent. This paper provides a valuable reference for the material selection of UV PDs based on ZnO NWs surface modification. (paper)