Light-sensing ambipolar organic transistors for optoelectronic applications

Since their invention use of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) has been restricted to applications that explore their unifunctional, i.e. current switching, characteristics. Recently, however, OFETs with additional functionalities have been designed and demonstrated with most notable examples the light-emitting (LE-OFET)^[1] and light-sensing (LS-OFET) ^[2] transistors. These devices are of particular significance since design and fabrication of a new type of organic circuits can now be envisioned. Here we report on electro-optical circuits based on ambipolar LS-OFETs and unipolar OFETs. By carefully tuning the ambipolar transport of LS-OFETs their photosensitivity can be controlled and optimised. By going a step further and integrating LS-OFETs with unipolar OFETs we are able to demonstrate various optoelectronic circuits including electro-optical switches and logic gates. A unique characteristic of these gates is that their input signal(s) can be designed to be either all-optical or electro-optical. An additional advantage of the technology is that LS-OFETs can be integrated with the driving electronics using the same number of processing steps, hence eliminating the need of additional fabrication costs. This is one of the first demonstrations of organic circuits where signal processing involves the use of both optical and electrical input signals. Such optoelectronic devices/circuits could one day be explored in various applications including electro-optical transceivers and optical sensor arrays.