Characteristic Improvements of ZnO-Based Metal–Semiconductor–Metal Photodetector on Flexible Substrate with ZnO Cap Layer

In this work, ZnO-based metal–semiconductor–metal photodetectors with and without a ZnO cap layer were fabricated on flexible substrates of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) for comparative analysis. The ZnO films were prepared by a low-temperature sputtering process. The photodetector with a ZnO cap layer (stack structure: ZnO/Ag/ZnO/PET) shows a much higher UV-to-visible rejection ratio of 1.56 ×10³ than that without. This can be attributed to the photocurrents that are not only significantly increased in the UV region but also slightly suppressed in the visible region for such a novel structure. With an incident wavelength of 370 nm and an applied bias of 3 V, the responsivities of both photodetectors with and without a ZnO cap layer are 3.80 ×10^-2 and 2.36 ×10^-3 A/W, which correspond to quantum efficiencies of 1.13 and 0.07%, respectively. The Schottky barrier height at the Ag/ZnO interface is also determined to be 0.782 eV.