Employing the vapor cooling condensation system and the distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), an intrinsic zinc-oxide (i-ZnO) film and Fabry-Perot cavity were deposited and used as the structure of the ZnO-based resonant cavity enhanced metal-semiconductor-metal ultraviolet photodetectors (RCE MSM UV PDs). The reflection of the DBRs with 18.5 and 2.5 HfO2/SiO2 pairs at a wavelength of 305 nm was 98.9% and 33.7%, respectively. Owing to the RCE structure, the 50 nm-thick ZnO-based RCE MSM UV PDs exhibited a UV-visible ratio of 265, a photoresponsivity of 0.268 A/W, and a detectivity of 1.19 x 10(10) cm Hz(0.5) W-1 at a wavelength of 305 nm. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.