Low-Noise Multispectral Photodetectors Made from All Solution-Processed Inorganic Semiconductors

Infrared, visible, and multispectral photodetectors are important components for sensing, security and electronics applications. Current fabrication of these devices is based on inorganic materials grown by epitaxial techniques which are not compatible with low-cost large-scale processing. Here, air-stable multispectral solution-processed inorganic double heterostructure photodetectors, using PbS quantum dots (QDs) as the photoactive layer, colloidal ZnO nanoparticles as the electron transport/hole blocking layer (ETL/HBL), and solution-derived NiO as the hole transport/electron blocking layer (HTL/EBL) are reported. The resulting device has low dark current density of 20 nA cm(-2) with a noise equivalent power (NEP) on the order of tens of picowatts across the detection spectra and a specific detectivity (D-star) value of 1.2 x 10(12) cm Hz(1/2) W-1. These parameters are comparable to commercially available Si, Ge, and InGaAs photodetectors. The devices have a linear dynamic range (LDR) over 65 dB and a bandwidth over 35 kHz, which are sufficient for imaging applications. Finally, these solution-processed inorganic devices have a long storage lifetime in air, even without encapsulation.