Fabrication and Application of Different Nanostructured ZnO in Ultraviolet Photodetectors: A Review

Nanostructured Wide Bandgap Semiconductors (NWBS) are supposed to be one of the candidate materials for manufacturing ultraviolet photodetectors (UVPDs) with excellent performance. Recently, different nanostructured ZnO was applied in UVPDs, which has been reported to possess outstanding advantages for UV detection and attract extensive research. Although some significant progress has been reported in the research of UVPDs, there are still other problems needs to be drawn more attention. For example, the electron depletion layer will be caused by the oxygen adsorption on the surface of ZnO, which could reduce the electron concentration. This review begins with machining methods of different nanostructured ZnO (e.g. ZnO nanowires (NWs), nanorods (NRs), microtubes, nanoparticles (NPs), nanoneedles and film) and then the detection mechanism of the UVPDs is also introduced. In addition, UVPDs assembled with core structure mentioned show different photoelectric properties in this review, mainly including responsivity, on/off ratio, and response time. Finally, the development trend of UVPDs research and its application prospect are prospected.