In Situ Bulk Passivation and Carrier Transport Modulation in Te‐TeO x Films Enable Low‐Noise Monolithic Near‐Infrared Imagers

ABSTRACT Near‐infrared (NIR) imagers are essential for applications ranging from material sorting and autonomous driving to biomedical diagnostics, yet their performance is often limited by severe carrier recombination and high dark current. Here, we demonstrate a low‐noise NIR photodiode based on Te‐TeO x nanocrystalline‐in‐matrix films, in which the surrounding oxide matrix provides in situ bulk passivation and enables the modulation of carrier transport to balance carrier loss and extraction. This approach reduces trap density, suppresses recombination, and prolongs carrier lifetime, while controlled oxide incorporation tunes the optical bandgap and interfacial offsets of the heterojunction photodiode, resulting in spectral response spanning the visible and NIR regions with low dark current. The resulting photodiodes exhibit a low dark current of 9.70 nA cm −2 at a bias of −10 mV, a detectivity of 3.85 × 10 12 Jones and an ultralow detectable power of 1.35 pW for NIR photodetection. The strategy is compatible with direct monolithic integration with readout integrated circuits, enabling a 256 × 256 focal‐plane imager with excellent pixel uniformity. It further supports high‐quality focal‐plane imaging in both visible and NIR regions, as well as solution identification and imaging through smoke.