Fast-Response, Highly Air-Stable, and Water-Resistant Organic Photodetectors Based on a Single-Crystal Pt Complex

Abstract

Organic semiconductors demonstrate several advantages over conventional inorganic materials for novel electronic and optoelectronic applications, including molecularly tunable properties, flexibility, low-cost, and facile device integration. However, before organic semiconductors can be used for the next-generation devices, such as ultrafast photodetectors (PDs), it is necessary to develop new materials that feature both high mobility and ambient stability. Toward this goal, a highly stable PD based on the organic single crystal [PtBr2(5,5′-bis(CF3CH2OCH2)-2,2′-bpy)] (or “Pt complex (1o)”) is demonstrated as the active semiconductor channel—a material that features a lamellar molecular structure and high-quality, intraligand charge transfer. Benefitting from its unique crystal structure, the Pt-complex (1o) device exhibits a field-effect mobility of ≈0.45 cm2 V−1 s−1 without loss of significant performance under ambient conditions even after 40 days without encapsulation, as well as immersion in distilled water for a period of 24 h. Furthermore, the device features a maximum photoresponsivity of 1 × 103 A W−1, a detectivity of 1.1 × 1012 cm Hz1/2 W−1, and a record fast response/recovery time of 80/90 µs, which has never been previously achieved in other organic PDs. These findings strongly support and promote the use of the single-crystal Pt complex (1o) in next-generation organic optoelectronic devices.