Ultraviolet band-pass Schottky barrier photodetectors formed by Al-doped ZnO contacts to n-GaN

This work prepared Al-doped ZnO(AZO) films using dc sputtering to form Schottky contacts onto GaN films with low-temperature-grown GaN cap layer. Application of ultraviolet photodetector showed that spectral responsivity exhibits a narrow bandpass characteristic ranging from 345 to 375 nm. Moreover, unbiased peak responsivity was estimated to be around 0.12 AW at 365 nm, which corresponds to a quantum efficiency of around 40%. In our study, relatively low responsivity can be explained by the marked absorption of the AZO contact layer. When the reverse biases were below 5 V, the study revealed that dark currents were well below 5× 10-12 A even though the samples were annealed at increased temperatures.