• High performance Al nanostructures/ZnO quantum dots heterostructure photodetectors with a controllable geometry of the Al nanostructures are demonstrated.

• Light utilization of the photoactive layers is significantly boosted with the Al nanostructures.

• The light confinement effect is inherently determined by the geometries of the Al nanostructures.

Light confinement induced by spontaneous near-surface resonance is inherently determined by the location and geometry of metallic nanostructures (NSs), offering a facile and effective approach to break through the limitation of the light-mater interaction within the photoactive layers. Here, we demonstrate high-performance Al NS/ZnO quantum dots (Al/ZnO) heterostructure UV photodetectors with controllable morphologies of the self-assembled Al NSs. The Al/ZnO heterostructures exhibit a superior light utilization than the ZnO/Al heterostructures, and a strong morphological dependence of the Al NSs on the optical properties of the heterostructures. The inter-diffusion of Al atoms into ZnO matrixes is of a great benefit for the carrier transportation. Consequently, the optimal photocurrent of the Al/ZnO heterostructure photodetectors is significantly increased by 275 times to ~ 1.065 mA compared to that of the pristine ZnO device, and an outstanding photoresponsivity of 11.98 A W⁻¹ is correspondingly achieved under 6.9 mW cm⁻² UV light illumination at 10 V bias. In addition, a relatively fast response is similarly witnessed with the Al/ZnO devices, paving a path to fabricate the high-performance UV photodetectors for applications.

• 展示了具有可控制的Al纳米结构几何形状的高性能Al纳米结构/ ZnO量子点异质结构光电探测器。

• Al纳米结构大大提高了光敏层的光利用率。

• 光限制效应固有地由Al纳米结构的几何形状确定。

由自发的近表面共振引起的光限制本质上取决于金属纳米结构（NSs）的位置和几何形状，从而提供了一种简便有效的方法来突破光敏层内光物质相互作用的限制。在这里，我们展示了具有可控形态的自组装Al NSs的高性能Al NS / ZnO量子点（Al / ZnO）异质结构紫外光电探测器。Al / ZnO异质结构显示出比ZnO / Al异质结构更好的光利用率，并且Al NSs对异质结构的光学性质具有强烈的形态依赖性。Al原子相互扩散到ZnO基体中对于载流子传输有很大的好处。所以，^-1相应下6.9毫瓦厘米实现^-2 UV光照射在10个V偏压。此外，Al / ZnO器件同样具有相对较快的响应速度，这为制造适用于应用的高性能UV光电探测器铺平了道路。