High-performance Flexible Photodetectors based on Aligned Cadmium Sulfide Nanowire Networks

We developed a method to mass-produce aligned cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanowire (NW) network channels for highly flexible and high-performance photodetectors. In this method, CdS NWs were aligned along the molecular patterns on flexible substrates by a directed assembly strategy. The aligned CdS NW patterns were utilized as the channel of flexible photodetectors. The photodetectors based on \textit{aligned} CdS NWs showed $\sim$ 10 times higher photosensitivity and $\sim$ 100 times faster photoresponse than those based on \textit{randomly-oriented} CdS NW networks. Additionally, the stable photoconductive characteristics of our flexible photodetectors were maintained even when the photodetectors were bent down to a 0.2 mm radius of curvature. This simple but efficient strategy should pave the way for the large-scale fabrication of low-cost and high-performance flexible photodetectors based on the aligned CdS NW networks.