Indium-doped SnO2 nanobelts for high-performance transparent and flexible photosensors by a facile assembly

Flexible and transparent electronics is the emerging future technology for optoelectronic devices. Recently, it has attracted considerable attention from the research community due to its prodigious commercial applications. Herein, we report highly flexible and transparent ultraviolet photosensors based on indium-doped tin oxide nanobelts with enhanced simultaneous photosensitivity and recovery speed, compared to pure SnO2 nanobelts. Optoelectronic properties of the nanobelt photosensors have been found to be strongly related to the indium doping concentration and grain size of the nanobelts. A facile assembly method has been used to prepare the well-aligned nanobelt device for UV photosensors. Excellent flexible properties of the nanobelts have been explored, which show a superior response during bending tests and almost maintain their properties after 300 bending cycles. The enhanced photosensitivity of about 70 times that of undoped SnO2 nanobelts along with a highly enhanced recovery speed of less than 1.75 s have been achieved by the precise doping of In3+ into SnO2 lattice nanobelts. All these results show that our prepared photosensors demonstrate superior mechanical, electrical, and optical properties for their use in flexible and transparent electronics.