ZnO nanowire Schottky barrier ultraviolet photodetector with high sensitivity and fast recovery speed

ZnO nanowire (NW) ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors have high sensitivity, while the long recovery time is an important limitation for its applications. In this paper, we demonstrate the promising applications of ZnO NW Schottky barrier as high performance UV photodetector with high sensitivity and fast recovery speed. The on/off ratio, sensitivity, and photocurrent gain are 4 × 105, 2.6 × 103 A/W, and 8.5 × 103, respectively. The recovery time is 0.28  s when photocurrent decreases by 3 orders of magnitude, and the corresponding time constant is as short as 46 ms. The physical mechanisms of the fast recovery properties have also been discussed.