Highly Flexible Organic Nanofiber Phototransistors Fabricated on a Textile Composite for Wearable Photosensors

Abstract

Highly flexible organic nanofiber phototransistors are fabricated on a highly flexible poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) textile/poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) composite substrate. Organic nanofibers are obtained by electrospinning, using a mixture of poly(3,3 '''-didodecylquarterthiophene) (PQT-12) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) as the semiconducting polymer and processing aid, respectively. PDMS is used as both a buffer layer for flattening the PET textile and a dielectric layer in the bottom-gate bottom-contact device configuration. PQT-12: PEO nanofibers can be well-aligned on the textile composite substrate by electrospinning onto a rotating drum collector. The nanofiber phototransistors fabricated on the PET/PDMS textile composite substrate show highly stable device performance (on-current retention up to 82.3 (+/- 6.7)%) under extreme bending conditions, with a bending radius down to 0.75 mm and repeated tests over 1000 cycles, while those prepared on film-type PET and PDMS-only substrates exhibit much poorer performances. The photoresponsive behaviors of PQT-12: PEO nanofiber phototransistors have been investigated under light irradiation with different wavelengths. The maximum photoresponsivity, photocurrent/dark-current ratio, and external quantum efficiency under blue light illumination were 930 mA W-1, 2.76, and 246%, respectively. Furthermore, highly flexible 10 x 10 photosensor arrays have been fabricated which are able to detect incident photonic signals with high resolution. The flexible photosensors described herein have high potential for applications as wearable photosensors.