Recovery of thermal-degraded ZnO photodetector by embedding nano silver oxide nanoparticles

The degraded performance of annealed ZnO-based photodetector can be recovered by embedding Ag2O nanoparticles resulted from the transformation of as-deposited Ag layer. After thermal treatment, the electrons were attracted at the interface between ZnO and Ag2O. The excess Ag+ ions form the cluster to incorporate into the interstitial sites of ZnO lattice to create a larger amount of lattice defects for the leakage path. The photo-current of ZnO film with Ag2O nanoparticles is less than annealed ZnO film because the photo-induced electrons would flow into Ag2O side. ZnO photodetector with the appropriate Ag2O nanoparticles possesses the best rejection ratio.