Chemical bath deposited ZnO thin film based UV photoconductive detector

• ZnO thin film based MSM UV photodetector fabricated by using chemical bath deposition.
• UV sensing properties of ZnO UV photodetector depends on the preparative parameters of deposition technique.
• The UV photodetectors device shows low rise time and high fall time.

Ag/ZnO/Ag metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) Ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors based on Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films are successfully fabricated on the glass substrate by using chemical bath deposition (CBD), which shows the good ohmic contact behavior between metal-semiconductor junctions. The devices are characterized to investigate the effect of deposition time and thickness on the photoconductive properties of ZnO thin films. The physiochemical properties of ZnO thin films are carried out. Thin films exhibit hexagonal crystal structure with the preferential orientation along (002) plane. With the applied bias of 5 V, the ZnO based photodetector shows low dark current and high photocurrent of 113.83 μA. The device exhibits relatively high photoresponse with rise time about 9 s and fall time about 21 s. It suggests that ZnO thin films are potential candidates for the UV photodetector application using easy and low-cost fabrication method.