Electrochemical synthesis of hydroxyl group-functionalized PProDOT/ZnO for an ultraviolet photodetector

Zulpikar Helil; Tursun Abdiryim; Ruxangul Jamal; Aygul Kadir; Yuzhu Che; Dongna Zou; Mariyam Niyaz

doi:10.1039/d1ra01962g

Electrochemical synthesis of hydroxyl group-functionalized PProDOT/ZnO for an ultraviolet photodetector

RSC Adv. 2021 Apr 28;11(26):15825-15834. doi: 10.1039/d1ra01962g. eCollection 2021 Apr 26.

Authors

Zulpikar Helil¹, Tursun Abdiryim¹, Ruxangul Jamal², Aygul Kadir², Yuzhu Che¹, Dongna Zou¹, Mariyam Niyaz¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Energy Materials Chemistry, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials, Autonomous Region, Institute of Applied Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Xinjiang University Urumqi 830046 P. R. China tursunabdir@sina.com.cn.
² Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Fine Chemicals, Ministry of Education, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Xinjiang University Urumqi 830046 P. R. China.

Abstract

Ultraviolet (UV) detectors based on zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods (NRs) are ideal materials for UV radiation detection. However, owing to the surface effect of ZnO NRs, their speed of photoresponse and photosensitivity need to be improved. In this study, a UV photodetector was fabricated via electrochemical coating of poly(3,4-propylenedioxythiophene) grafted with functional groups (-OH) on a hydrothermally grown ZnO NRs. For comparison, poly(3,4-propylenedioxythiophene)/ZnO composites were synthesized using the same method. The structure of the composite film was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy (Raman), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The effect of the polymer structure on the UV sensing ability of ZnO NRs was evaluated by fabricating a UV detector with a composite material. The structural results indicated that the PProDOT-type conductive polymer and ZnO composites were successfully synthesized. The UV photodetection results showed that the presence of functional groups (-OH) in polymer chains could enhance the responsivity of the material. The response time of the ZnO/PProDOT-OH composite was 15 s shorter than that of the ZnO/PProDOT composite. A rise in photocurrent induced an increase from 2.5 A W^-1 to 34.75 A W^-1 in the UV photoresponsivity of the ZnO/PProDOT-OH composite, compared with that of the pure ZnO NRs. The external quantum efficiency and detectivity significantly improved, the increases of which were attributed to the coupling of the polymer and ZnO NRs.