Light sensing in a photoresponsive, organic-based complementary inverter.

A photoresponsive organic complementary inverter was fabricated and its light sensing characteristics was studied. An organic circuit was fabricated by integrating p-channel pentacene and n-channel copper hexadecafluorophthalocyanine (F16CuPc) organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with a polymeric gate dielectric. The F16CuPc OTFT showed typical n-type characteristics and a strong photoresponse under illumination. Whereas under illumination, the pentacene OTFT showed a relatively weak photoresponse with typical p-type characteristics. The characteristics of the organic electro-optical circuit could be controlled by the incident light intensity, a gate bias, or both. The logic threshold (V(M), when V(IN) = V(OUT)) was reduced from 28.6 V without illumination to 19.9 V at 6.94 mW/cm². By using solely optical or a combination of optical and electrical pulse signals, light sensing was demonstrated in this type of organic circuit, suggesting that the circuit can be potentially used in various optoelectronic applications, including optical sensors, photodetectors and electro-optical transceivers.