Photoconductivity

Mathematics

Heterojunction

Statistics

Materials science

Photodetector

Flexibility (engineering)

Optoelectronics

Nature Communications

The development of high-temperature photodetectors can be beneficial for numerous applications, such as aerospace engineering, military defence and harsh-environments robotics. However, current high-temperature photodetectors are characterized by low photoresponsivity (<10 A/W) due to the poor optical sensitivity of commonly used heat-resistant materials. Here, we report the realization of h-BN-encapsulated graphite/WSe2 photodetectors which can endure temperatures up to 700 °C in air (1000 °C in vacuum) and exhibit unconventional negative photoconductivity (NPC) at high temperatures. Operated in NPC mode, the devices show a photoresponsivity up to 2.2 × 106 A/W, which is ~5 orders of magnitude higher than that of state-of-the-art high-temperature photodetectors. Furthermore, our devices demonstrate good flexibility, making it highly adaptive to various shaped surfaces. Our approach can be extended to other 2D materials and may stimulate further developments of 2D optoelectronic devices operating in harsh environments.

High-temperature flexible WSe2 photodetectors with ultrahigh photoresponsivity