Band gap tunable Zn2SnO4 nanocubes through thermal effect and their outstanding ultraviolet light photoresponse

This work presents a method for synthesis of high-yield, uniform and band gap tunable Zn2SnO4 nanocubes. These nanocubes can be further self-assembled into a series of novel nanofilms with tunable optical band gaps from 3.54 to 3.18 eV by simply increasing the heat treatment temperature. The Zn2SnO4 nanocube-nanofilm based device has been successfully fabricated and presents obviously higher photocurrent, larger photocurrent to dark current ratio than the previously reported individual nanostructure-based UV-light photodetectors, and could be used in high performance photodetectors, solar cells, and electrode materials for Li-ion battery.