The Fabrication and Characterization of Self-Powered P-I-N Perovskite Photodetectors Using Yttrium-Doped Cuprous Thiocyanate

In the first part of this study, Y₂O₃-doped copper thiocyanate (CuSCN) with different x wt% (named CuSCN-xY, x = 0, 1, 2, and 3) films were synthesized onto ITO substrates using the spin coating method. UV-vis, SEM, AFM, EDS, and cyclic voltammetry were used to investigate the material properties of the proposed films. The conductivity and carrier mobility of the films increased with additional yttrium doping. It was found that the films with 2% Y₂O₃ (CuSCN-2Y) have the smallest valence band edges (5.28 eV). Meanwhile, CuSCN-2Y films demonstrated the densest surface morphology and the smallest surface roughness (22.8 nm), along with the highest conductivity value of 764 S cm^-1. Then, P-I-N self-powered UV photodetectors (PDs) were fabricated using the ITO substrate/ZnO seed layer/ZnO nanorod/CsPbBr₃/CuSCN-xY/Ag structure, and the characteristics of the devices were measured. In terms of response time, the rise time and fall time were reduced from 26 ms/22 ms to 9 ms/5 ms; the responsivity was increased from 243 mA/W to 534 mA/W, and the on/off ratio was increased to 2.47 × 10⁶. The results showed that Y₂O₃ doping also helped improve the P-I-N photodetector's device performance, and the mechanisms were investigated. Compared with other published P-I-N self-powered photodetectors, our proposed devices show a fairly high on/off ratio, quick response times, and high responsivity and detectivity.