ZnO nanorods/polyaniline heterojunctions for low-power flexible light sensors

•ZnO NRs/polyaniline p-n junction photodetectors were fabricated on flexible substrates.•The fabricated ZnO NRs grew along the (002) direction.•The fabricated ZnO NRs have low compressive strain.•The ZnO NRs/PAni junction showed a high sensitivity of 85%.•The photodetectors showed quantum efficiency as high as 12%.

Zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) were directly grown on p-type polyaniline (PAni)/polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using chemical bath deposition method at low temperature. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques were used to study the morphology and structure of the fabricated films. The resulted ZnO NRs are hexagonal and grew vertically on the PAni surface in the (002) direction along the c-axis. The compressive strain, Raman and photoluminescence measurements confirmed the high-quality crystal structure of the formed ZnO NRs with no damage of the PAni surface. The photodetector made using ZnO NRs/PAni junction showed a sensitivity of 85% and a quantum efficiency of 12.3% at 5 V.

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