High-Quality Conformal Homogeneous All-Vacuum Deposited CsPbCl₃ Thin Films and Their UV Photodiode Applications

A sensitive and fast ultraviolet (UV) photodetector is strongly desirable because of its wide range of applications in chemical/biological sensing and imaging. CsPbCl3-based thin film photodetectors have not been constructed previously owing to their extremely poor precursor solubility; however, vapor deposition allows for thin film fabrication without the limitation of solubility. Therefore, this work is the first to demonstrate the optoelectronic properties of inorganic CsPbCl3 perovskite thin films and UV photodiodes using all-vacuum deposition. The perovskites annealed at 120 °C exhibited outstanding performance, including a notable external quantum efficiency value of 797.1% with an applied bias of −2 V, an outstanding detectivity of 1.4 × 1013 Jones, a short response time as low as ∼ 50 μs, and a large linear dynamic range of up to 136 dB. CsPbCl3 thin films manufactured by this vacuum-deposited approach were also found to be moisture-resistant and demonstrated high durability. The devices maintained excellent performance and demonstrated less than 10% degradation after 30 days. Thus, thin film visible-blind UV detectors can potentially be used in transparent smart displays, window-integrated electronic circuits, and sensor applications.