Polarization induced two-dimensional electron gas in ZnO/ZnMgO Heterointerface for High-performance enhanced UV photodetector

Abstract The spontaneous formation of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with a high carrier density (∼1018 cm−3) was achieved at a ZnO/Mg0.2Zn0.8O interface grown using a facile radio-frequency magnetron sputtering system on a quartz substrate. Compared with Mg0.2Zn0.8O ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors (PDs) with and without a ZnO buffer layer, the PD based on ZnO/Mg0.2Zn0.8O bilayer films exhibited not only sensitivity to dual wavelength in the UV region, but also significantly enhanced spectral responsivity, photocurrent-to-dark current ratio (107), specific detectivity (1014), and UV/visible rejection ratio of about four orders of magnitude at a low operating voltage bias. Induced by 2DEG, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of photodetector reached 14858% at 10 V, indicating that a considered high gain was achieved in the device based on this heterojunction architecture. The gain mechanism was further demonstrated by polarization induction and band bending in detail. This application of 2DEG in a practical detector offers a novel and effective approach for the substantial improvement in the high-performance of ZnO/Mg0.2Zn0.8O dual-band UV PDs.