Reducing the dark current density and enhancing the overall performance of the device is the focal point in research for organic photodetectors. Two novel random terpolymers (P3 and P4) with different molecular weights are synthesized and evaluated as acceptors in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) polymer photodetectors. Compared with known acceptor materials, such as N2200 (P1) and F-N2200 (P2), polymer P4 has a lower lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy level, favorable morphology, and good miscibility with a donor material J71, which leads to proper phase separation of the blend film and better dissociation of excitons and transport of carriers. Therefore, a considerably low dark current density (Jd) of 1.9 × 10-10 A/cm2 and a high specific detectivity (D*) of 1.8 × 1013 cm Hz1/2/W (also "Jones") at 580 nm under a -0.1 V bias are realized for the P4-based photodetector. More importantly, the device also exhibits a fast response speed (τr/τf = 1.24/1.87 μs) and a wide linear dynamic range (LDR) of 109.2 dB. This work demonstrates that high-performance all-polymer photodetectors with ideal morphology can be realized by random polymer acceptors with a fine-tuned molecular weight.
Keywords: all-polymer photodetectors; dark current density; molecular weight; morphology; random terpolymer acceptors; specific detectivity.