Solution-route low-temperature fabrication of thin-film p-n junctions

Abstract

In this work, p-n junctions were fabricated at low temperature by means of UV-assisted thermal annealing. At 200 °C, remarkable rectifying and optical properties were observed due to the conversion of the sol-gel precursors to oxide films, which was aided by UV exposure. The resulting p-NiO/n-ZnO structures are featured as the thinnest ever reported (≈55 nm) based on a solution process with a large forward electrical current 10 −2 -10 −1 A cm −2 and the lowest leakage current (1 μA cm −2 ). UV light and precursor solution engineering contributed to form metal-oxide bonding at relatively low temperature in ambient conditions. The heterojunctions fabricated by the proper combination of these alternatives and simple processes were evaluated using UV-vis and FT-IR spectroscopy, FE-SEM, AFM, XRD, XPS, and I-V curves.

Self-powered broadband photodetector based on a solution-processed p-NiO/n-CdS:Al heterojunction

“…So far, commercially available photodetectors based on silicon, GaAS, InGaAs and other sputtered semiconductor materials show high performance, but their manufacture requires high vacuum and temperature, which leads to complex and costly fabrication processes [12,13]. The extensive research on photoactive inorganic semiconductors has led to the development of efficient and cost-effective fabrication methods that can be implemented with solution processes, which provide crystalline materials with high photo-absorption and band alignment of semiconductors by introducing dopant atoms [14][15][16].…”