Self-Powered Organometal Halide Perovskite Photodetector with Embedded Silver Nanowires

Metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM) configuration of perovskite photodetectors (PPDs) suggests easy and low-cost manufacturing. However, the basic structures of MSM PPDs include vertical and lateral configurations, which require the use of expensive materials such as transparent conductive oxides or/and sophisticated fabrication techniques such as lithography. Integrating metallic nanowire-based electrodes into the perovskite photo-absorber layer to form one-half of the MSM PPD structure could potentially resolve the key issues of both configurations. Here, a manufacturing of solution-processed and self-powered MSM PPDs with embedded silver nanowire electrodes is demonstrated. The embedding of silver nanowire electrode into the perovskite layer is achieved by treating the silver nanowire/perovskite double layer with a methylamine gas vapor. The evaporated gold layer is used as the second electrode to form MSM PPDs. The prepared MSM PPDs show a photoresponsivity of 4 × 10⁻⁵ AW⁻¹ in the UV region and 2 × 10⁻⁵ AW⁻¹ in the visible region. On average, the devices exhibit a photocurrent of 1.1 × 10⁻⁶ A under white light (75 mW cm⁻²) illumination with an ON/OFF ratio of 83.4. The results presented in this work open up a new method for development and fabrication of simple, solution-processable MSM self-powered PPDs.