Highly sensitive panchromatic ternary polymer photodetectors enabled by Forster resonance energy transfer and post solvent treatment

A panchromatic ternary polymer photodetector (PPD) with broadband response from 300 to 1000 nm is fabricated via incorporating poly({4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy] benzo[1,2-b: 4,5-b'] dithiophene-2,6-diyl}{3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl) carbonyl] thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl}) (PTB7) as the third component in poly(diketopyrrolopyrrole-terthiophene) (PDPP3T) [6]:-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM), revealing a high detectivity (D*) of 7.02 x 10(11) Jones at 850 nm. Through the analysis of photoluminescence and external quantum efficiency spectroscopy, we find that PTB7 can not only improve the absorption between 500-750 nm to induce more excitons, but also provide non-radiative transfer energy to PDPP3T via Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET). Moreover, we employ post solvent treatment (PST) to rectify the morphology of ternary blends, thus reducing charge recombination, suppressing dark current, and boosting the D* to 1.57 x 10(12) Jones at 850 nm, which is 2.34 folds higher than that of the untreated PPDs. This work indicates that the incorporation of FRET donor and PST in ternary blends is an effective way to develop highly sensitive panchromatic PPDs.