Recent efforts in the field of organic photodetectors (OPD) have been focused on extending broadband detection into the near-infrared (NIR) region. Here, two blends of an ultralow bandgap push-pull polymer TQ-T combined with state-of-the-art non-fullerene acceptors, IEICO-4F and Y6, are compared to obtain OPDs for sensing in the NIR beyond 1100 nm, which is the cut off for benchmark Si photodiodes. It is observed that the TQ-T:IEICO-4F device has a superior IR responsivity (0.03 AW -1 at 1200 nm and -2 V bias) and can detect infrared light up to 1800 nm, while the TQ-T:Y6 blend shows a lower responsivity of 0.01 AW -1 . Device physics analyses are tied with spectroscopic and morphological studies to link the superior performance of TQ-T:IEICO-4F OPD to its faster charge separation as well as more favorable donor-acceptor domains mixing. In the polymer blend with Y6, the formation of large agglomerates that exceed the exciton diffusion length, which leads to high charge recombination, is observed. An application of these devices as biometric sensors for real-time heart rate monitoring via photoplethysmography, utilizing infrared light, is demonstrated.

It is well established that for organic photodetectors (OPD) to compete with their inorganic counterparts, low dark currents at reverse bias must be achieved. Here, two rhodanine terminated nonfullerene acceptors O-FBR and O-IDTBR are shown to deliver low dark currents at -2V of 0.17 nAcm -2 and 0.84 nAcm -2 , respectively when combined with the synthetically scalable polymer PTQ10 in OPD. These low dark currents contribute to the excellent sensitivity to low light of the detectors, reaching values of 0.21 μWcm -2 for PTQ10:O-FBR-based OPD and 0.57 μWcm -2 for PTQ10:O-IDTBR-based OPD. In both cases, this sensitivity exceeds that of a commercially available silicon photodiode. The responsivity of the PTQ10:O-FBR-based OPD of 0.34 AW -1 under a reverse bias of -2V also exceeds that of a silicon photodiode. Meanwhile, the responsivity of the PTQ10:O-IDTBR of 0.03 AW -1 is limited by the energetic offset of the blend. The OPDs deliver high specific detectivities of 9.6x10 12 Jones and 3.3x10 11 Jones for O-FBR and O-IDTBR-based blends, respectively. Both active layers are blade-coated in air, making them suitable for high-throughput methods.Finally, all three of the materials can be synthesised at low cost and on a large scale making these blends good candidates for commercial OPD applications.

Blue organic light-emitting diodes require high triplet interlayer materials, which induce large energetic barriers at the interfaces resulting in high device voltages and reduced efficiencies. Here, we alleviate this issue by designing a low triplet energy hole transporting interlayer with high mobility, combined with an interface exciplex that confines excitons at the emissive layer/electron transporting material interface. As a result, blue thermally activated delay fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes with a below-bandgap turn-on voltage of 2.5 V and an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 41.2% were successfully fabricated. These devices also showed suppressed efficiency roll-off maintaining an EQE of 34.8% at 1000 cd m−2. Our approach paves the way for further progress through exploring alternative device engineering approaches instead of only focusing on the demanding synthesis of organic compounds with complex structures.

The addition of a third component to a donor:acceptor blend is a powerful tool to enhance the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells. Featuring a similar operating mechanism, organic photodetectors are also expected to benefit from this approach. Here, we fabricated ternary organic photodetectors, based on a polymer donor and two nonfullerene acceptors, resulting in a low dark current of 0.42 nA cm−2 at −2 V and a broadband specific detectivity of 1012 Jones. We found that exciton recombination in the binary blend is reduced in ternary devices due to the formation of a pseudo-binary microstructure with mixed donor–acceptor phases. With this approach a wide range of intermediate open-circuit voltages is accessible, without sacrificing light-to-current conversion. This results in ternary organic photodetector (TOPD) with improved Responsivity values in the near-infrared. Moreover, morphology analyses reveal that TOPD devices showed improved microstructure ordering and consequentially higher charge carrier mobilities compared to the reference devices.

One of the key challenges facing organic photodiodes (OPDs) is increasing the detection into the infrared region. Organic semiconductor polymers provide a platform for tuning the bandgap and optoelectronic response to go beyond the traditional 1000-nanometer benchmark. In this work, we present a near-infrared (NIR) polymer with absorption up to 1500 nanometers. The polymer-based OPD delivers a high specific detectivity D * of 1.03 × 10 10 Jones (−2 volts) at 1200 nanometers and a dark current J d of just 2.3 × 10 −6 ampere per square centimeter at −2 volts. We demonstrate a strong improvement of all OPD metrics in the NIR region compared to previously reported NIR OPD due to the enhanced crystallinity and optimized energy alignment, which leads to reduced charge recombination. The high D * value in the 1100-to-1300-nanometer region is particularly promising for biosensing applications. We demonstrate the OPD as a pulse oximeter under NIR illumination, delivering heart rate and blood oxygen saturation readings in real time without signal amplification.