High photocurrent gain in NiO thin film/M-doped ZnO nanorods (M = Ag, Cd and Ni) heterojunction based ultraviolet photodiodes

The thermal evaporation method has been used to deposit p-type NiO thin film, which was combined with hydrothermally grown n-type pure and M-doped ZnO nanorods (M=Ag, Cd and Ni) to fabricate a high performance p-n heterojunction ultraviolet photodiodes. The fabricated photodiodes show high rectification ratio and relatively low leakage current. The p-NiO/n-Zn0.94Ag0.06O heterojunction photo diode displays the highest photocurrent gain (similar to 1.52 x 10(4)), a photoresponsivity of similar to 4.48 x 10(3) AW(-1) and a photosensitivity of similar to 13.56 compared with the other fabricated photodiodes. The predominated transport mechanisms of the p-n heterojunction ultraviolet photodiodes at low and high applied forward bias may be recombination-tunneling and space charge limited current, respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.