Improvement of Porous GaN-Based UV Photodetector with Graphene Cladding

• Published in: Applied sciences 2021-11, Vol.11 (22), p.10833
• Main Authors: Mohammed, Furqan Khairi, Beh, Khi Poay, Ramizy, Asmiet, Ahmed, Naser M., Yam, Fong Kwong, Hassan, Zainuriah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemical vapor deposition; Electrochemistry; Electrodes; Electrolytes; Etching; Graphene; graphene cladding; high sensitivity; Leakage current; Methods; Morphology; Photometers; Polymethyl methacrylate; porous GaN; Raman spectroscopy; Sediments; UV photodetector
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app112210833

This work presents the role of graphene in improving the performance of a porous GaN-based UV photodetector. The porous GaN-based photodetector, with a mean pore diameter of 35 nm, possessed higher UV sensitivity, about 95% better compared to that of the as-received (non-porous) photodetector. In addition, it exhibits a lower magnitude of leakage current at dark ambient, about 70.9 μA, compared to that of the as-received photodetector with 13.7 mA. However, it is also highly resistive in nature due to the corresponding electrochemical process selectively dissolute doped regions. Herein, two types of graphene, derived from CVD and the electrochemical exfoliation (EC) process, were cladded onto the porous GaN region. The formation of a graphene/porous GaN interface, as evident from the decrease in average distance between defects as determined from Raman spectroscopy, infers better charge accumulation and conductance, which significantly improved UV sensing. While the leakage current shows little improvement, the UV sensitivity was greatly enhanced, by about 460% and 420% for CVD and EC cladded samples. The slight difference between types of graphene was attributed to the coverage area on porous GaN, where CVD-grown graphene tends to be continuous while EC-graphene relies on aggregation to form films.