Fabrication of high-quality ZnTe nanowires toward high-performance rigid/flexible visible-light photodetectors

ZnTe is an important p-type semiconductor with great applications as field-effect transistors and photodetectors. In this paper, individual ZnTe nanowires based field-effect transistors was fabricated, showing evident p-type conductivity with an effect mobility of 11.3 cm(2)/Vs. Single ZnTe nanowire based photodetectors on rigid silicon substrate exhibited high sensitivity and excellent stability to visible incident light with responstivity and quantum efficiency as high as 1.87 x 10(5) A/W and 4.36 x 10(7)% respectively and are stable in a wide temperature range (25-250 degrees C). The polarization-sensitivity of the ZnTe nanowires was studied for the first time. The results revealed a periodic oscillation with the continuous variation of polarization angles. Besides, flexible photodetectors were also fabricated with the features of excellent flexibility, stability and sensitivity to visible incident light. Our work would enable application opportunities in using ZnTe nanowires for ultrahigh-performance photodetectors in scientific, commercial and industrial applications. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America