Enhancement of photo-response via surface plasmon resonance induced by Ag nano-particles embedded in ZnO

• We have realized responsivity enhancement of ZnO detectors via SPR without dark current increase.
• That the enhancement spectra coincide with the SPR spectra confirms the SPR enhancement.
• The spectral responsivity peak value increases from 472 mA/W to 10.522 A/W, by 22.3 times.

Surface plasmon resonance can be exploited to improve the performance of the photodetectors. However, it may cause the increase of dark current as a side effect. The enhancement of responsivity is highly dependent on the device structure involving SPR and the situations of the metal nano-particles. In this paper, we reported the responsivity enhancement of the ZnO UV detectors with SPR based on a structure in which Ag nano-particles are embedded in ZnO film, without the apparent increase of dark current. We found that the characteristic wavelength for SPR absorption is 380 nm, well predicted by Mie theory. And the spectral responsivity peak value increases from 472 mA/W to 10.522 A/W, by 22.3 times. The good matching between enhancement spectra and SPR absorption spectra confirms that the responsivity enhancement is resulted from SPR. Our results are of great importance in improving the photodetectors based on SPR effects, which may be widely used in light detection.