Enhancement in the sensitivity of photo-detector performance of CuO-Gd2O3 dual phase nanocomposites

• Published in: Journal of alloys and compounds 2021-12, Vol.886, p.161196, Article 161196
• Main Authors: Paul, M. Justin, Suresh, R., Valavan, K. Thirumal, Marnadu, R., Vidhya, M., Ahmad, Nafis, Alshehri, A.M., Gedi, Sreedevi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absorption; Al/n-CuO-Gd2O3/p-Si MIS device; Aluminum; Copper; Copper oxides; Electrical properties; Electronics; Energy gap; Gadolinium; Gadolinium oxides; Low temperature; Metal oxides; Morphology; Nanocomposites; Nanorods; Network terminals; Optical properties; Photo-detectors; Photoelectrons; Photometers; Sensitivity enhancement; Silicon; Structural properties; X ray photoelectron spectroscopy
• ISSN: 0925-8388; 1873-4669
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2021.161196

•A polycrystalline with dual phase in nature of cubic and monoclinic structure was observed.•The largest and lowest energy gap values are found to be 4.03 eV and 2.44 eV for Gd and metal copper.•White sponge, nanorods, nanoneedles and nanorice shaped morphology has observed by FESEM.•The MIS diode was achieved a minimum ideality factor values of 5.34.•The excellent opto-electronics properties of the developed photodetectors make it suitable for future nano-electronics. Here we are reporting the development of Gadolinium based copper oxide nanocomposites via a cost-effective low-temperature co-precipitation process. X-ray diffraction study approves the dual phase polycrystalline cubic and monoclinic structure with predominant orientations along (2 2 2) and (0 0 2) directions. A strong &sharp peak is positioned at ~512 cm−1in FT-IR is assigned to metal oxide (Cu-O/Gd-O) network terminal stretching & phonon band. Absorption study reveals strong absorption peaks for the samples prepared from pure copper (Cu) and gadolinium (Gd), however poor absorption was noticed from mixed CuO-Gd2O3nanocomposites.The largest and lowest energy gap values are found to be 4.03 eV and 2.44 eV for Gd and metal copper, respectively. White sponge, nanorods, nanoneedles and nanorice shaped morphology has observed from FESEM analysis. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) survey spectrum unveils the essential elements like Cu, Gd and oxygen. The peak fitting of Gd4d exhibits two major peaks at 143.6 and 155.8 eV binding energies correspond to spin orbit doublet splitting of 12.2 eV between 4d5/2 and 4d3/2, respectively. From I-V study, we observed that the presence of CuO-Gd2O3 nanocomposites at p-Si/Al interface improved the performance of the MIS diode. The excellent opto-electronics properties of the developed photo-detectors make it suitable for future nano-electronics.