Improved responsivity of MgZnO film ultraviolet photodetectors modified with vertical arrays ZnO nanowires by light trapping effect

The light trapping effect of ZnO nanowires (NWs) is attracting increasing attention as it effectively enhances the photoelectric effect. In this paper, high-density ZnO NWs are grown on a metal-semiconductor-metal structure MgZnO film UV photodetector (PD) as a light trapping unit. The photogenerated carriers diffuse along the longitudinal axis of the ZnO NWs, then diffuse onto the thin film and are collected by an applied bias electrode. When the device is connected to the NWs, the responsivity is about 12 times higher than that of the pure MgZnO film UV PD with a large light-dark current ratio (4.93 × 10⁴). The array structure of the ZnO NWs enhances the number of photogenerated carriers at the top interface and provides a longer optical path length and a larger surface area. The resulting light trapping effect endows the device with excellent photoelectric properties. In this work, the introduction of NWs not only fundamentally improves the performance of the MgZnO thin film UV PD, but the resulting photodetector also demonstrates a sharp contrast between light trapping UV PD and the MgZnO thin film UV PD.