One-step hydrothermal synthesis of telluride molybdenum/reduced graphene oxide with Schottky barrier for fabricating label-free photoelectrochemical profenofos aptasensor

Abstract Schottky barrier with a suitable barrier height which acts as the electron tank can reduce the recombination of photogenerated electronic-hole pairs, consequently leads to higher photoelectric properties. Telluride molybdenum nanoparticles (MoTe2 NPs) are a kind of transition-metal dichalcogenides, which is a burgeoning class of materials with low toxicity, high specific surface area, high carrier mobility, and wide spectral absorption. In order to enhance the photoelectric performance of MoTe2, we adopted a one-step hydrothermal synthesis to construct MoTe2 NPs/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) heterostructures with suitable Schottky barrier. The photocurrent intensity of MoTe2 NPs/RGO heterostructures was 21.8 times of RGO and 10.5 times of MoTe2 NPs. On the basis of excellent visible light-responsive of MoTe2 nanoparticles/RGO, a label-free PEC aptasensor for the detection of profenofos (PRO) was successfully constructed, indicating that MoTe2 nanoparticles/RGO would be a promising visible light-responsive photoactive material for PEC biosensors. This aptasensor exhibited a wide linear range (10−9 g L–1 and 10−2 g L–1) and a relatively low detection limit (3.3 × 10−10 g L−1). At the same time, the application of Schottky barrier in the field of photoelectric sensing was expanded.