A high-sensitivity, fast-response, rapid-recovery UV photodetector fabricated based on catalyst-free growth of ZnO nanowire networks on glass substrate

• A novel ZnO-NW based UV photodetector was created on glass substrate by thermal evaporation.
• Use a sputtered ITO thin film as a new seed layer on a glass substrate for growth ZnO-NW.
• The ZnO-NW device shows supper performance than many of the conventional device.
• Enhancing the performance of ZnO UV photodetector due to the larger surface-to-volume ratio and better crystal quality.

Here, we report for the first time the fabrication of metal–semiconductor–metal ultraviolet photodetector based on catalyst-free growth of ZnO nanowire networks on ITO seeds/glass substrates by thermal evaporation method. The morphological, structural, and optical properties of the sample were studied by using field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, and UV–Vis spectrophotometer. Upon exposure to 365 nm light (1.5 mW/cm2) at five-bias voltage, the device showed 2.32 × 103 sensitivity. In addition, the photocurrent was 1.79 × 10−4 A, and the internal gain of the photodetector was 24.2. The response and the recovery times were calculated to be 3.9 and 2.6 s, respectively, upon illumination to a pulse UV light (365 nm, 1.5 mW/cm2) at five-bias voltage. All of these results demonstrate that this high-quality detector can be a promising candidate as a low-cost UV photodetector for commercially integrated photoelectronic applications.