ZnO Nanorods/Polyaniline-Based Inorganic/Organic Heterojunctions for Enhanced Light Sensing Applications

Abstract

© 2015 The Electrochemical Society. We report the direct growth of high quality, vertically aligned zinc oxide nanorods (NRs) on p-type polyaniline (PAni) using chemical bath deposition method at low temperature. The morphological and structural features of the fabricated films were studied using field emission scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The fabricated ZnO (NRs) are hexagonal and grew in the (002) direction along the c-axis and the optimum annealing temperature of the seed layer was found to be 130C with an optimum time of 3 h and a growth temperature of 90C. The low compressive strain value confirmed the high-quality crystal structure of the formed ZnO (NRs). Photoluminescence (PL) measurements confirmed the quality crystal structure of the formed ZnO on PAni. The photodetector made using ZnO (NRs)/PAni junctions showed very fast response time and an increase in the forward and reverse currents under light illumination.