SnO2 Nanorods for Light Sensor and UV Detector

A photoelectric device has been fabricated using stannic oxide (SnO2) nanorods which are obtained by the hydrothermal method with diameter of 300 nm and length of 1.5 mu m. The UV-visible absorption spectrum demonstrates a band gap of 3.6 eV. The photoelectric effects of the device have been systematically characterized in the irradiation of the simulated sunlight and UV light, respectively. The highly sensitive responses of the device to light shifts and its excellent stability of sustained photocurrent in exposure to light demonstrates its great potential applications as optical sensors/switches with a response time in similar to ms range. In addition, the linear plot of photocurrent versus the incident light intensity (simulated sunlight and UV) indicates that the nanorod device can be used as a sensitive and stable UV photometer. The performance of the device is analyzed in terms of the normalized photoconductive gain and is compared with the ZnO film photodetector.