Improving Performance of Organic Photodetectors based on Trap Assisted Photomultiplication through Adjusting Photogenerated Carrier Distributions

TL;DR

This study optimizes organic photodetectors by adjusting active layer thickness to enhance trap-assisted photomultiplication, significantly improving efficiency and responsivity for weak light detection.

Contribution

It demonstrates that tuning the active layer thickness optimizes carrier distribution, leading to record-high EQE and responsivity in trap-assisted photomultiplier OPDs.

Findings

Maximum EQE of 105569% at 205 nm active layer thickness

Photoresponsivity of 344 A/W at optimal thickness

Detectivity varies with wavelength and layer thickness

Abstract

Organic photodetectors (OPDs) based on trap-assisted photomultiplication (PM) effect with external quantum efficiency (EQE) far exceeding 100% are quite appealing for achieving highly sensitive photodetection. A classic structure of PM-type OPDs is based on the active layer of P3HT:PC70BM with the weight ratio of 100:1, in which PC70BM forms islands and supply bulk electron traps for inducing strong interfacial band bending and thus hole tunneling from the Al electrode. In this paper, aiming for optimizing the PM effect, we study the photogenerated carrier distribution by tuning thickness of the active layer (P3HT:PC70BM). The combination effect of both the exciton generation and exciton dissociation processes affects the photogenerated carrier distribution, which ultimately determines the PM performances of OPDs. On the one hand, simulation reveals that the thinner the active layer, the stronger exciton generation near the Al electrode. On the other hand, the photoluminescence and surface morphology studies reflect that the active layer with thickness of 230 nm has the smooth surface and produces the highest exciton dissociation rate. The two effects result in the OPD with a 205 nm thick active layer has the champion EQE (105569%) and photoresponsivity (344 A/W), corresponding to an enhancement of 330% with respect to the OPD with a 325 nm thick active layer. Ascribed to the trade off of EQE and dark current, the detectivity performs differently at different wavelength ranges. At short wavelength range, the detectivity reaches the highest when the active layer is 205 nm thick, while the highest detectivity at long wavelength range is produced by the thickest active layer. Our work contributes to developing low cost organic photodetectors for detecting weak light signals.