A tunable ZnO/electrolyte heterojunction for a self-powered photodetector.

A self-powered photodetector was fabricated by taking advantage of the band bending at the ZnO/electrolyte interface. And a 48% performance enhancement was achieved with the introduction of 0.15% compressive strain due to the generation of piezopolarization charges. This result could be extended to other solid-liquid reactions, such as photoelectrochemical or photocatalytic processes.