Performance of an Ultraviolet Photoconductive Sensor Using Well-Aligned Aluminium-Doped Zinc-Oxide Nanorod Arrays Annealed in an Air and Oxygen Environment

Ultraviolet (UV) photoconductive sensors were fabricated using an aluminium (Al)-doped zinc-oxide (ZnO) nanorod array with a diameter between 40 and 150 nm and thickness of approximately 1.1 µm. The nanorod arrays were prepared using a sonicated sol–gel immersion and annealed at 500 °C under different ambient conditions of air and oxygen. The annealing process induced the formation of nanoholes on the nanorod surfaces, which increased the nanorod surface area. The nanoholes existed in larger quantities on the nanorod surfaces annealed in air compared with the nanorods annealed in an oxygen environment. This condition reduced the rise and decay time constants of the air-annealed UV sensor. However, the sample annealed in an oxygen ambient shows the highest responsivity of 1.55 A/W for UV light (365 nm, 5 mW/cm²) under a 10 V bias mainly due to defect reduction and improvement in stoichiometric properties. To the best of our knowledge, a UV photoconductive sensor using this ZnO nanostructure has not yet been reported.