Full near-ultraviolet response photoelectrochemical ultraviolet detector based on TiO2nanocrystalline coated stainless steel mesh photoanode

Kun Wei; Baoping Li; Chengshi Gong; Ziran Zhu; Yu Zhang; Menghan Liu; Peiling Ren; Xiaojun Pan; Youqing Wang; Jinyuan Zhou

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ac1b57

Full near-ultraviolet response photoelectrochemical ultraviolet detector based on TiO₂nanocrystalline coated stainless steel mesh photoanode

Nanotechnology. 2021 Aug 31;32(47). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac1b57.

Authors

Kun Wei^{1

2}, Baoping Li¹, Chengshi Gong³, Ziran Zhu², Yu Zhang¹, Menghan Liu¹, Peiling Ren¹, Xiaojun Pan², Youqing Wang^{1

2}, Jinyuan Zhou²

Affiliations

¹ Research Center for Semiconductor Materials and Devices, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, People's Republic of China.
² School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, People's Republic of China.
³ School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou 730070, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 34359054
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac1b57

Abstract

In order to solve the 'ultraviolet (UV) filtering problem' caused by traditional sandwich-type structure in photoelectrochemical (PEC) UV detector, we design a special electrode based on stainless steel mesh, which integrates the light absorption layer and the electron collection electrode in a simple way. In combination with an UV-transparent quartz substrate, UV light can directly reach the active material. The improved detector shows good visible-blind, self-powered, and linear response characteristics. The serious recombination caused by metal electrode is suppressed by depositing a barrier layer. The optimized device exhibits a high photoresponse of 0.103 A W^-1at 296 nm, a short recovery time of 250 ms, and very sensitive switching ability. Furthermore, the response range of the detector is expanded from 300 to 400 nm to the full near-UV region. Our work provides an efficient strategy to solve the key problem of the PEC UV detector.

Keywords: nanocrystalline; near ultraviolet; photoelectrochemical; titanium dioxide; ultraviolet detector.