Laser ablation fabrication of a-NiO/-Si heterojunction for broadband and self-powered UV-Visible-NIR photodetection.

We report on the optoelectronic characteristics of-NiO/-Si heterojunction photodiode for broadband photodetection, fabricated by depositing a-type NiO thin film onto a commercial-type silicon substrate using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The structural properties of the PLD-grown-NiO material were analysed by means of x-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, confirming its crystalline nature and revealing the presence of Ni vacancies, respectively. Hall measurements confirmed the-type semiconducting nature of the NiO thin film having a carrier concentration of 8.