One-step fabrication of CdS nanoflake arrays and its application for photodetector

CdS nanoflake arrays (NFAs) have been synthesized through a simple one-step chemical bath deposition method. Morphology and structural characterizations revealed good crystal quality and growth uniformity of this structure. A visible-light photodetector based on the NFAs has been fabricated as well. Under the illumination with 440 nm light and 1.1 mW/cm2, its responsivity can reach as high as 629 A/W and the specific detectivity runs up to 1.4 × 1013 Jones. We attribute this high performance to the synergy effect of the enhanced light absorption and optimized carrier transport, which is resulted from this special nanoflake array structure and the vertical device design. Our study indicates that CdS NFAs have great potential in large-scale production and wide application in the field of high performance photodetector.