Phonon-enhanced photothermoelectric effect in SrTiO₃ ultra-broadband photodetector

The self-powered and ultra-broadband photodetectors based on photothermoelectric (PTE) effect are promising for diverse applications such as sensing, environmental monitoring, night vision and astronomy. The sensitivity of PTE photodetectors is determined by the Seebeck coefficient and the rising temperature under illumination. Previous PTE photodetectors mostly rely on traditional thermoelectric materials with Seebeck coefficients in the range of 100 μV K^-1, and array structures with multiple units are usually employed to enhance the photodetection performance. Herein, we demonstrate a reduced SrTiO₃ (r-STO) based PTE photodetector with sensitivity up to 1.2 V W^-1 and broadband spectral response from 325 nm to 10.67 μm. The high performance of r-STO PTE photodetector is attributed to its intrinsic high Seebeck coefficient and phonon-enhanced photoresponse in the long wavelength infrared region. Our results open up a new avenue towards searching for novel PTE materials beyond traditional thermoelectric materials for low-cost and high-performance photodetector at room temperature.