Fabrication and study of Si/Sb2Se3 heterojunction-based visible light photodetectors

In this work, n-Si/p-Sb2Se3 heterojunction is fabricated via thermal evaporation growth of Sb2Se3 onto (100) oriented n-type Si. The heterojunction was subjected to white light photo response measurements to evaluate the photodetection capabilities. Two different growth temperatures of 300 and 320 °C have been used for the growth of Sb2Se3. X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy analyses indicated the formation of single-phase and near stoichiometric Sb2Se3 films for both of the growth temperatures. n-Si/p-Sb2Se3 heterostructure exhibited diode-like rectifying behavior under dark and illumination conditions. Furthermore, responsivity and detectivity values of the films grown at 300 and 320 °C were found to be 5.6 & 4.4 mA/W and 1.9 × 109& 1.17 × 109 Jones, respectively. Photocurrent generation was observed under 0 V bias condition, with rise and fall times of 0.68 s and 0.37 s for 300 °C and 0.28 s and 0.5 s for 320 °C grown n-Si/p-Sb2Se3 heterostructures, respectively, indicating the potential applicability in self-powered photodetectors.