Two Bulk-Heterojunctions Made of Blended Hybrid Nanocomposites for High-Performance Broadband, Self-Driven Photodetectors

Muhammad Sulaman; Shengyi Yang; Ali Imran; Zhenheng Zhang; Arfan Bukhtiar; Zhenhua Ge; Yong Song; Feiyang Sun; Yurong Jiang; Libin Tang; Bingsuo Zou

doi:10.1021/acsami.3c01749

Two Bulk-Heterojunctions Made of Blended Hybrid Nanocomposites for High-Performance Broadband, Self-Driven Photodetectors

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 May 31;15(21):25671-25683. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c01749. Epub 2023 May 18.

Authors

Muhammad Sulaman^{1

2}, Shengyi Yang^{1

2}, Ali Imran³, Zhenheng Zhang^{1

2}, Arfan Bukhtiar⁴, Zhenhua Ge^{1

2}, Yong Song⁵, Feiyang Sun^{1

2}, Yurong Jiang⁵, Libin Tang⁶, Bingsuo Zou⁴

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Key Lab of Nanophotonics and Ultrafine Optoelectronic Systems, Center for Micro-Nanotechnology, School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China.
² Key Lab of Advanced Optoelectronic Quantum Design and Measurement, Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China.
³ School of Micro-Nanoelectronics, ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, State Key Laboratories of Silicon Materials and Modern Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 311200, China.
⁴ MOE Key Lab of New Processing Technology for Nonferrous Metals and Materials and Guangxi Key Lab of Processing for Nonferrous Metals and Featured Materials, School of Resources, Environments and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, P. R. China.
⁵ Beijing Key Lab for Precision Optoelectronic Measurement Instrument and Technology, School of Optics and Photonics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China.
⁶ Kunming Institute of Physics, Kunming 650223, P. R. China.

PMID: 37202884
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c01749

Abstract

Heterojunctions based on low dimensional semiconducting materials are one of the most promising alternatives for next-generation optoelectronic devices. By choosing different dopants in high-quality semiconducting nanomaterials, p-n junctions can be realized with tailored energy band alignments. Also, p-n bulk-heterojunctions (BHJs) based photodetectors have shown high detectivity because of the suppressed dark current and high photocurrent, which are due to the larger built-in electric potential within the depletion region and can significantly improve the quantum efficiency by reducing the carriers' recombination. In this work, PbSe quantum dots (QDs) blended with ZnO nanocrystals (NCs) were used as the n-type layer, while CsPbBr₃ NCs doped with P3HT were used as the p-type layer; as a result, a p-n BHJ was formed with a strong built-in electric field. Consequently, such a kind of p-n BHJ photodetector ITO/ZnO/PbSe:ZnO/CsPbBr₃:P3HT/P3HT/Au showed a high ON/OFF current ratio of 10⁵ with a photoresponsivity of 1.4 A/W and specific detectivity of 6.59 × 10¹⁴ Jones under 0.1 mW/cm² 532 nm illumination in self-driven mode. Moreover, the simulation performed by TCAD also agrees well with our experimental results, and the underlying physical mechanism for enhanced performance is discussed in detail for this type of p-n BHJ photodetector.

Keywords: PbSe colloidal quantum dots (CQDs); broadband; p-n bulk-heterojunctions (BHJs); perovskite nanocrystals; self-driven photodetector.