A molecular pyroelectric enabling broadband photo-pyroelectric effect towards self-driven wide spectral photodetection.

Zeng, Xi; Liu, Yi; Weng, Wen; Hua, Lina; Tang, Liwei; Guo, Wuqian; Chen, Yaoyao; Yang, Tian et al. · Nat Commun · 2023

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Broadband spectral photoresponse has shown bright prospects for various optoelectronic devices, while fulfilling high photoactivity beyond the material bandgap is a great challenge. Here, we present a molecular pyroelectric, N-isopropylbenzylaminium trifluoroacetate (N-IBATFA), of which the broadband photo-pyroelectric effects allow for self-driven wide spectral photodetection. As a simple organic binary salt, N-IBATFA possesses a large polarization (~9.5 μC cm<sup>-2</sup>), high pyroelectric coefficient (~6.9 μC cm<sup>-2</sup> K<sup>-1</sup>) and figures-of-merits (F<sub>V</sub> = 187.9 × 10<sup>-2</sup> cm<sup>2</sup> μC<sup>-1</sup>; F<sub>D</sub> = 881.5 × 10<sup>-5 </sup>Pa<sup>-0.5</sup>) comparable to the state-of-art pyroelectric materials. Particularly, such intriguing attributes endow broadband photo-pyroelectric effect, namely, transient currents covering ultraviolet (UV, 266 nm) to near-infrared (NIR, 1950 nm) spectral regime, which breaks the restriction of its optical absorption and thus allows wide UV-NIR spectral photodetection. Our finding highlights the potential of molecular system as high-performance candidates toward self-powered wide spectral photodetection.