Printing High-Performance Tungsten Oxide Thin Film Ultraviolet Photodetectors on ZnO Quantum Dot Textured SiO2 Surface

A zinc oxide quantum dot (ZnO QD) texturing layer was printed on a SiO
₂
surface to resolve the issue of ink drop aggregation during inkjet printing tungsten oxide precursor (WO
₃
Pr) ink, made from ultrasonicating ammonium metatungstate [(NH
₃
)
₆
H
₂
W
₁₂
O
₄₀
]in a mixture of Dimethylformamide and water, for high-performance ultraviolet (UV) WO
₃
photoconductors. It was found that the ZnO QD textured surface offers a pinning effect of the WO
₃
Pr ink and hence prevents the ink from aggregating and coagulating into large droplets, which prohibits formation of uniform WO
₃
Pr films on hydrophobic SiO
₂
/Si or glass substrates. With the ZnO QD texturing layer, a uniform WO
₃
film can be obtained when printing WO
₃
Pr at room-temperature (22 °C), which reduced cracks and eliminated the coffee ring effect that arises when printing at elevated temperature such as 50 °C. High crystallinity was confirmed on the printed WO
₃
films, which leads to UV photoresponsivity up to 16.6 mA/W, which is comparable with the best reported on printed WO
₃
UV detectors without a ZnO QD texturing layer. This result shows surface texturing using a pre-printed QD layer provides a facile and compatible approach in controlling inkjet printing for high-quality oxide films directly from precursor solutions.