Tunable plasmonic resonance induced by the collective oscillation of the electrons on metallic nanostructures can excellently enhance the light response of ZnO films, which provides an effective way to break through the limitation of the performance of ZnO photodetectors. Here, broad-band high-performance ZnO/Au heterostructures photodetectors with various morphologies of self-assembled Au nanoantennas are fabricated via a facile approach under the spin-coated ZnO colloidal quantum dots films. With a systematic control on growth condition, the self-assembled Au nanoantennas undergo a drastic evolution from the corrugated nanomounds to the island-like nanostructures, and the light absorption of the resulting ZnO/Au heterostructures correspondingly exhibits a strongly morphological dependence on the Au nanoantennas. Meanwhile, the photoresponse of the ZnO-based photodetectors is significantly improved throughout a wide spectrum between UV and visible regions owing to the enhanced light absorption induced by the localized surface plasmon resonance. As a result, the optimal switch ratio of the ZnO/Au heterostructures photodetector increases by 1 order to ∼1.13 × 105 than that of the pristine ZnO one because of the obviously increased photocurrent ( Iph) and comparable dark current, thus leading to ∼9.1 and ∼4.9 times increases in the photoresponsivity and the normalized detectivity. Meanwhile, the significant increases in the Iph of ∼5.2 and ∼9.7 times are likewise observed with the ZnO/Au heterostructures under 530 nm and white-light illumination. This work can offer a handy and effective approach for the fabrication of ultrasensitive ZnO-based photodetectors within a broad-band wavelength by utilizing the Au plasmonic nanostructures.
Keywords: ZnO colloidal quantum dots; ZnO/Au heterostructures photodetectors; broad-band photoresponse; plasmonic enhancement; self-assembled Au nanoantennas.