Plasma-Engineered Amorphous Metal Oxide Nanostructure-Based Low-Power Highly Responsive Phototransistor Array for Next-Generation Optoelectronics

The development of energy-efficient, high-performance broadband photodetectors utilizing cost-effective amorphous metal oxide semiconductors has great potential for next-generation electronic applications. Various semiconductors are used in commercially available photodetectors to detect ultraviolet to near-infrared lights, each requiring specific semiconductors to detect different wavelengths. The utilization of a metal oxide semiconductor without an additional external photoabsorption layer for detecting a wide spectrum range from UV to NIR has attracted significant attention in the field of optoelectronics. This study utilized hydrogen plasma treatment to increase the charge carrier and generate subgap states in the IGZO film, enabling wide-spectrum detection without the need for additional external photoabsorption layers. Furthermore, a high-k dielectric was introduced as a gate dielectric to induce a high electric field on the channel, resulting in improved bias stability with low-power operation. The H2 plasma-treated IGZO phototransistors exhibited ultrahigh photoresponsivity (R ∼104–103 A W–1) and detectivity (D* ∼1014–1012 Jones) across a broad range of incident wavelengths (400–1000 nm), making them a promising candidate for next-generation optoelectronics. This study proposes a promising approach for the development of cost-effective, energy-efficient, and high-performance broadband photodetectors, which can have a significant impact on various applications such as artificial human vision systems, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), face recognition, security surveillance, optical communication, and biomedical imaging.