Research progress of chiral organic semiconductors for circularly polarized light detectors

Circularly polarized light (CPL) detectors hold great promise for applications in magnetic recording, spin optical communication, biological sensing, and quantum computation. Conventional CPL detectors, which rely heavily on bulky and complex external optical components, struggle to meet the demands of device integration, miniaturization, flexibility, and high efficiency. Notably, chiral organic semiconductors, possessing an intrinsic capability for direct CPL discrimination, along with advantages such as easily tunable properties, solution processability, and intrinsic flexibility, have emerged as promising candidates for CPL detectors. However, the development of chiral organic semiconductors is facing great challenges due to the intrinsic trade-off between charge carrier mobility and absorption dissymmetry factor within these materials. Encouragingly, tremendous efforts have been devoted to resolving this contradiction, contributing to the development of a series of high-performance chiral organic semiconductors. Representative progress is timely summarized from the perspectives of material innovation, device engineering, and advanced applications. Current challenges and emerging opportunities in the field are also discussed. This review aims to establish clear guidelines for the development of chiral organic semiconductors and foster the advancement of high-performance CPL detectors and their application exploration. We hope this review will inspire broad interdisciplinary interest and accelerate progress in the field of chiral optoelectronics.