ZnO based UV detectors with Surface Plasmon Polariton enhancement on responsivity

•We have fabricated SPP enhanced ZnO MSM UV detectors.•The absorption spectra show two SPP enhanced absorption peaks.•The UV detector based on this structure has greatly improved the responsivity. We have fabricated Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) enhanced ZnO based Metal–Semiconductor–Metal (MSM) photoconductive UV detectors with the introduction of Ag nanoparticles. The absorption spectra show two SPP resonance peaks located at 321nm and 389nm, respectively. Annealing in Ar atmosphere leads to a red-shift for the long wavelength peak due to an increase of the average size of Ag particles and congregation of them. The experiment data agrees well with the computing result based on Mie theory. And the responsivity enhancement is demonstrated by the fact that the peak responsivity (at 350nm) increases by more than 100 times, from 472mAW−1 to 51.3AW−1.