Ultraviolet irradiation dosimeter based on persistent photoconductivity effect of ZnO

It is essential to determine the accumulative ultraviolet (UV) irradiation over a period of time in some cases, such as monitoring UV irradiation to the skin, solar disinfection of water, photoresist exposure, etc. UV colorimetric dosimeters, which use dyes' color change to monitor the amount of UV exposure, have been widely studied. However, the exposure data of these UV colorimetric dosimeters can hardly be converted to digital signals, limiting their applications. In this paper, a UV dosimeter has been proposed and demonstrated based on the persistent photoconductivity (PPC) in zinc oxide microwires (ZnO MWs). The PPC effect usually results in high photoconductivity gain but low response speed, which has been regarded as a disadvantage for photodetectors. However, in this work, the unique characteristics of the PPC effect have been utilized to monitoring the accumulative exposure. We demonstrate that the photocurrent in the ZnO MWs depends on the accumulative UV exposure due to the PPC effect, thus the photocurrent can be utilized to determine the UV accumulation. The dosimeter is immune to visible light and exhibits a photoconductive gain of 2654, and the relative error of the dosimeter is about 10%. This UV dosimeter with electrical output is reusable and convenient to integrate with other electronic devices and may also open a new application area for the PPC effect.