Photoinduced interfacial electron transfer plays a key role in photoactive organic inorganic hybrid nano materials and remains elusive with regard to interfacial energy level alignment. In this study, n-type organic semiconductor 1,6,7,12-tetrachloro-3,4,9,10-Perylenetetracarboxylicdiimide (PDI) molecules bearing carboxylic acid groups at nitrogen positions were grafted onto the surface of the Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles, and then blended with p-type poly (3-hexylthiophene) P3HT. The addition of PDI facilitates the charge transfer process from P3HT to ZnO, which was characterized by steady-state spectroscopy and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. High performance visible-light detector based on P3HT/PDI/ZnO has been fabricated. This provides guidelines for the construction of optoelectronic devices. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.