Electrical and Photoresponse Properties of an Intramolecular p-n Homojunction in Single Phosphorus-Doped ZnO Nanowires

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 9; no. 7; pp. 2513 - 2518
• Main Authors: Li, Ping-Jian, Liao, Zhi-Min, Zhang, Xin-Zheng, Zhang, Xue-Jin, Zhu, Hui-Chao, Gao, Jing-Yun, Laurent, K, Leprince-Wang, Y, Wang, N, Yu, Da-Peng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 08.07.2009
• Subjects: Chemical vapor deposition (including plasma-enhanced cvd, mocvd, etc.); Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electricity; Exact sciences and technology; Fluid Dynamics; Materials science; Methods of deposition of films and coatings; film growth and epitaxy; Methods of nanofabrication; Nanocrystalline materials; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Nanowires - chemistry; Optics and Photonics; Phosphorus Compounds - chemistry; Physics; Quantum wires; Zinc Oxide - chemistry; Electrical properties; Photoluminescence; Phosphorus; Photocurrents; Photodetectors; Indium additions; Phosphorus additions; Diodes; CVD; Monocrystals; Quantity ratio; Ambient temperature; p n junctions; Dark current; Zinc oxide; Nanowires; Photoconductivity; Nanostructured materials; Nanomaterial synthesis; Homojunctions
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl803443x

The single-crystal n-type and p-type ZnO nanowires (NWs) were synthesized via a chemical vapor deposition method, where phosphorus pentoxide was used as the dopant source. The electrical and photoluminescence studies reveal that phosphorus-doped ZnO NWs (ZnO:P NWs) can be changed from n-type to p-type with increasing P concentration. Furthermore, we report for the first time the formation of an intramolecular p-n homojunction in a single ZnO:P NW. The p-n junction diode has a high on/off current ratio of 2.5 × 103 and a low forward turn-on voltage of ∼1.37 V. Finally, the photoresponse properties of the diode were investigated under UV (325 nm) excitation in air at room temperature. The high photocurrent/dark current ratio (3.2 × 104) reveals that the diode has a potential as extreme sensitive UV photodetectors.