Effect of Addition of KI on the Hydrothermal Growth of ZnO Nanostructures Towards Hybrid Optoelectronic Device Applications

We report the structural and optoelectronic properties of Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures prepared by hydrothermal method. The morphological, structural and optical properties of the grown ZnO nanostructures were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) respectively. Upon addition of relatively small amount of KI during the in-situ hydrothermal growth the nanorods were formed, further increasing the concentration led to increased diameter of these nanorods and finally at relatively higher concentration of KI, ZnO nanosheets were formed. Later these structures were used to fabricate bi-layer ZnO/P3HT based hybrid photodiode. Subsequent hybrid photodiode measurement with ZnO nanorods and ZnO nanosheets indicated that the nanosheets exhibited improved photodiode response. Compared to the ZnO nanorod/P3HT devices, the optimized photodiode with the dense ZnO nanosheets/P3HT have shown significant increase in the rectification ratio and the photosenstivity from 3.21 to 1420 and from 5.85 to 1330 respectively. The enhanced photodiode response of bi-layered devices consisting of ZnO nanosheets indicated that optimizing the shape and size of ZnO nanostructures had a significant influence on the overall photocurrent and the observed results have been explained on the basis of reduction in the defect density with pronounced absorption in the UV region, thus leading to improved transmission of light in the visible range through these layers.