Light responsive polymer field-effect transistor

We report the effect of light incident on a polymer-based field-effect transistor and demonstrate the utility of light as an additional controlling parameter of the transistor state. The transistor exhibits large photosensitivity indicated by the sizable changes in the drain-source current at low levels of light. The response here is considerably higher than that from existing organic/polymeric planar, two-terminal photodetectors due to an additional process contributing to the enhancement. The light-responsive polymer transistor opens up a device-architecture concept for polymer-based electronics. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.