Electrochemical synthesis of Zinc oxide/polymer/phosphotungstic acid composites for a UV detector

ZnO is an ideal material for UV detection. However, due to the surface effect of ZnO, the photosensitivity of the ZnO based UV detector needs to be improved. In this study, we deposited a hydroxyl group functionalized (3,4-propylenethiophene) polymer (PProDOT-OH) film onto a hydrothermally grown ZnO nanoarray by electro-chemical deposition method to prevent the corrosion of ZnO by phosphotungsten acid (PWA), and then PWA was drip-coated on the composite film to prepare the ZnO/PProDOT-OH/PWA composite based UV detector. The structure and morphology of the composite were characterized by SEM, UV–vis, FT-IR, XRD, Raman, EDS, XPS analysis, illustrating the phosphotungstic acid was uniformly coated on ZnO/PProDOT-OH surface and confirming the composite was successfully synthesized. The UV detection performance was studied through preparing a UV detector with the composite material and results indicate that the introduction of PWA could enhance the responsivity of the ZnO/PProDOT-OH composite-based UV detector.