UV-Photodetectors Based on Zinc Oxide Films Doped with Aluminum and Nickel

Abstract

By combining sol-gel and hydrothermal deposition methods on glass substrates, thin-film coatings of zinc oxide doped with nickel and aluminum were obtained. Studies of the structure and composition of the films using scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray and Raman spectroscopy have shown that they consist of close-packed zinc oxide crystallites doped with impurity atoms of nickel and aluminum. Resistive type photodetectors were manufactured based on the films obtained. It has been shown that when irradiated with ultraviolet light with a wavelength less than 400 nm, the resistivity of the structure decreases from 190–210 to 7.5–8.0 Ohm⋅cm. The achieved response time for the rise of the light pulse is 48 s, while the decay time is ≈700 s.

Keywords

• zinc-oxide
• sol-gel
• hydrothermal deposition
• photodetector
• ultraviolet radiation