High-Performance All-Polymer Photodetectors via a Thick Photoactive Layer Strategy

To achieve high detectivity in all-polymer photodetectors (all-PPDs), a thick-film photoactive layer is favored because it can effectively suppress the dark current density. However, if the photoactive layer of the film is too thick, it leads to reduced responsivity owing to increased recombination loss. We developed high-performance all-PPDs by using a narrowband-gap p-type polymer NT40 and an n-type polymer poly{[ N, N'-bis(2-octyldodecyl)-naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]- alt-5,5'-(2,2'bithiophene)} as the photoactive layer. The high charge carrier mobility of both copolymers enabled a photoactive layer thickness of 300 nm, leading to an ultralow dark current density of 4.85 × 10^-10 A cm^-2, a detectivity of 2.61 × 10¹³ Jones, a high responsivity of 0.33 A W^-1 at 720 nm, and a bias of -0.1 V. The detectivity achieved >10¹³ Jones in a wide range from 360 to 850 nm, which is among the highest values so far reported for all-PPDs without extra gains. More importantly, the resultant all-PPDs exhibited a high working frequency over 10 kHz associated with a large linear dynamic range. These findings demonstrate great potential for practical applications of the all-PPDs developed in this work.