3. PbSe
PbSe thin films are widely used for NIR and MWIR range applications due to their unique physical properties. PbSe polycrystalline thin films are widely used for infrared detectors
[37]. Considering that the photosensitivity of thin films is very sensitive to crystallite size, a research group prepared thin films with a thickness of 1.2 μm and different crystallite sizes. After post-processing, the detectivity of the photodetector achieved 2.8 × 10
10 Jones at room temperature
[38]. PbSe has many forms, such as polycrystal, monocrystal and QDs, which have been studied deeply and are widely used in infrared detectors. In order to reduce costs and improve performance, there has been a lot of research on nanotechnology in the past few decades
[39]. Photonic applications of CQDs involving lead chalcogenides are mainly associated with PbS and PbSe.
3.1. Properties
As lead chalcogenides, PbS and PbSe have many similarities in optical properties. PbSe is a typical direct band-gap semiconductor with a narrow band gap of 0.27 eV at room temperature
[40]. The narrow band property of bulk PbSe makes it ideal for MWIR detection. The small electron effective mass in PbSe causes a large Bohr radius of 46 nm, which makes the material ideal for studying quantum size effects observed only in large particles with a small surface-to-volume ratio
[41]. Combining these properties makes it possible to precisely alter the band gap and the spectral range of optical photoresponsivity
[39].
Using sodium selenite sulfate as the selenium source and lead acetate as the lead source, Begum et al. prepared nanocrystalline PbSe films on glass substrate by the chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The results show that the optical absorption of PbSe films increases with increases in deposition temperature. This may be due to an increase in grain size and a decrease in defects
[42]. The (αhν)
2 vs (hν) plots of PbSe thin films are linear over a wide spectral range. This indicates that there is a direct optical band gap in the PbSe films
[43]. Zhu et al. used pulse the sonoelectrochemical synthesis method to prepare PbSe nanoparticles and estimated the band gap of the materials by optical diffuse reflectance spectroscopy
[44].
The absorption spectra of PbSe CQDs with different particle sizes were given by Gao et al.
[45]. They used PbSe CQDs with an average radius of 2.8–3.5 nm and a corresponding band gap of 0.60–0.76 eV, judging from the position of the band edge peak in the absorption spectrum. Thambidurai et al. developed a high-performance infrared photoelectric detector up to 2.8 μm based on PbSe CQDs
[46]. They gave the photocurrent and voltage characteristics of photodetectors based on PbSe CQDs with different thicknesses (500, 900 and 1400 nm) in the wavelength range of 1.5–2.8 μm
[46].
3.2. Fabrication Methods
Photodetectors based on PbSe can be divided into two categories depending on the target wavelength of photosensitivity. In the early days, PbSe intrinsic semiconductors were widely used in MWIR detectors. Bulk PbSe has an optical band gap of 0.27 eV and a sensitive wavelength of 4.4 μm. In recent decades, however, there has been much more discussion about PbSe low-dimensional materials. Scholars have turned their attention to exploiting the quantum confinement effect, referring to the phenomenon that the energy quantization of microscopic particles becomes more obvious with decreases in its space motion limitation size, and the energy level changes from a continuous energy band to a discrete energy level, especially when the ground state energy level moves up and blue shift occurs. A common idea is to reduce the grain size below the Bohr radius. The sensitivity wavelength can be as short as 690 nm, and the band gap can reach 0.18 eV by adjusting the grain size of PbSe
[39]. PbSe-based infrared detectors have the potential to span the MWIR, SWIR, NIR and even visible wavelengths.
Massive PbSe semiconductor films prepared by chemical water baths and progress in preparation of PbSe NCs are described here.
3.2.1. Chemical Bath Deposition
CBD is a simple and effective method to synthesize high-quality semiconductor thin films without expensive and complex equipment
[47]. However, it should be noted that film properties with CBD are greatly affected by precursor fluid composition, bath time, bath temperature and PH value. CBD films are often considered to be deposited on silicon, glass or gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrates with a thickness between 0.2 and 2 μm
[38][39][48]. Some scholars believe that a rough substrate surface leads to better deposition
[49].
Regarding CBD, there are many different combinations of precursors. In 2003, Hancare et al. prepared PbSe films using lead nitrate and selenosulphate as precursors and tartaric acid as the complexing agent. PbSe thin films were deposited onto cleaned, spectroscopic-grade glass substrates
[50]. In 2010, Kassim et al. prepared PbSe films with lead nitrate solution as the lead source, sodium selenate as the selenium source and tartaric acid as the complexing agent
[51]. In 2013, Qiu et al. carried out research on the room-temperature PbSe photodetector, mixing sodium hydroxide, lead acetate and selenosulfate into a precursor solution in a ratio of 12:1:1
[38].
In addition, there are few references about the influence of the timing of the chemical water bath deposition process. Anuar et al. found that the duration of the water bath affects grain size, film thickness and surface roughness. They demonstrated in reliable experiments that grain size, film thickness and surface roughness increase when the deposition time increases from 20 to 150 min. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) images of different samples indicate that the film obtained by 60 min of deposition was uniform and that the substrate surface was covered with good spherical particles
[52]. Hone et al. prepared three different samples with deposition times of 30, 45 and 60 min. According to X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) patterns, they found that the peak intensities and preferred orientations of the crystals were affected by different deposition times. When choosing deposition times of 30 and 60 min, the crystals preferred orientations along the (111) plane, whereas for a deposition time of 40 min, the crystals preferred an orientation along the (200) plane
[53].
The influence of temperature and PH value on CBD has been widely reported. Deposition temperature has always been considered the most important parameter affecting film quality. It is believed that, with increases in deposition temperature, grain size increases, and dislocation density and microstrain decrease. Reductions in dislocation density and microstrain indicate reductions in lattice defects, i.e., the improvement of film quality. Additionally, deposition temperature has a significant effect on preferred orientation and film thickness
[54].
CBD polycrystalline films have good properties when sensitized with oxygen and iodine, which is necessary to activate PbSe as an MWIR detector. However, the specific mechanism of sensitization has not been clearly defined. The sensitization process of PbSe varies from reference to reference, but it usually involves two thermal steps: oxidation and iodization. In order to obtain better performance for PbSe infrared detectors, it is very important to study the mechanism behind the sensitization process, but there are still many doubts.
CBD also shows good prospects in the preparation of PbSe NCs. The chemical characteristics of PbSe thin films are strongly influenced by growth conditions such as ion concentration, PH value and deposition time. Studies have shown that the average size of PbSe nanoparticles increases from 23 nm to 51 nm as the deposition time passes from 1 h to 16 h
[55]. In addition, increases in temperature also make the grain size larger
[56].
In addition to chemical water bath deposition, PbSe films can also be synthesized by a variety of deposition techniques, such as co-evaporation
[57], pulse acoustic electrochemical
[44], thermal evaporation
[58] and pulse laser deposition
[59].
3.2.2. Fabrication of PbSe NCs
Monodispersion is required for photodetectors based on PbSe CQDs. A rapid nucleation followed by a slow growth process is considered the key
[60]. Nucleation is affected by temperature, degree of supersaturation in solution, interfacial tension, etc.
[61]. There are two ways to stop nucleation. One way is to lower the concentration of the solution below a certain level. The other is to rapidly inject precursors into a high-temperature mixed solution, which has achieved the purpose of rapid cooling, commonly known as thermal injection
[62]. Thermal injection is considered to be the most widely used method for synthesizing CQDs.
Murray et al. reported a method using lead oleate as the lead source and trioctylphosphine selenide as the selenium source, and the two are dissolved in trioctylphosphine. The above-room-temperature solution is quickly injected into a fast-stirring solution containing diphenylether at 150 °C. The growth rate of NC can be accelerated by increasing the solution temperature, and NC with the larger size can be prepared at a higher temperature. Solution temperatures of 90–220 °C correspond to NC diameters of 3.5–15 nm. When the grains reach the target size, the dispersion is cooled, short-chain alcohols are added to flocculate the NCs, and it is then separated from the solution by centrifugation
[63].
3.3. Devices
Research on PbSe photodetectors is focused on improving efficiency, making large imaging FPAs, manufacturing thermoelectric cooling imaging systems, and making more compact and low-cost systems
[39]. There are many types of photodetectors based on PbSe, such as photoconductor
[64], phototransistor
[65] and photodiode
[65].
Regarding the most advanced PbSe photodetector equipment, there are mainly the following kinds: broadband photodetectors using PbSe QD
[66], PbSe-based photodiode detectors
[67], tandem photodiode detectors
[68] and PbSe-based FET detectors
[69].
Jiang et al. reported an ultra-sensitive tandem CQD photodetector, which shows maximum detectivites of 8.1 × 10
13 Jones at 1100 nm and 100 K
[67].
Many research groups have tried to prepare IR photodetectors by coupling graphene with PbSe CQD. A heterojunction phototransistor based on PbSe CQD–graphene hybrids, which shows the highest responsivity of 10
6 A/W, was reported in 2015
[70]. In addition, the preparation of graphene electrodes on PbSe CQD vertical phototransistors has also been tried. The phototransistor exhibits an excellent responsivity of 1.1 × 10
4 A W
−1, a detectivity of 1.3 × 10
10 Jones, and an external quantum efficiency of 1.7 × 10
6%
[69]. Besides graphene, coupling between other materials and PbSe materials has also been studied and published. A hybrid photodetector based on Bi
2O
2Se nanosheets sensitized by PbSe CQDs was reported. Compared to pure Bi
2O
2Se or PbSe CQDs, the interfacial band offset between the two materials enhances the device’s responsivity and the response time. This PbSe CQDs–Bi
2O
2Se photodetector can render an infrared response above 10
3 A/W at 2 μm under external field effects
[71].