Heavy-to-light electron transition enabling real-time spectra detection of charged particles by a biocompatible semiconductor.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38321015.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-45089-2 and PMC identifier 10847108.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The current challenge of wearable/implantable personal dosimeters for medical diagnosis and radiotherapy applications is lack of suitable detector materials possessing both excellent detection performance and biocompatibility. Here, we report a solution-grown biocompatible organic single crystalline semiconductor (OSCS), 4-Hydroxyphenylacetic acid (4HPA), achieving real-time spectral detection of charged particles with single-particle sensitivity. Along in-plane direction, two-dimensional anisotropic 4HPA exhibits a large electron drift velocity of 5 × 10<sup>5 </sup>cm s<sup>-1</sup> at "radiation-mode" while maintaining a high resistivity of (1.28 ± 0.003) × 10<sup>12</sup> Ω·cm at "dark-mode" due to influence of dense π-π overlaps and high-energy L1 level. Therefore, 4HPA detectors exhibit the record spectra detection of charged particles among their organic counterparts, with energy resolution of 36%, (μt)<sub>e</sub> of (4.91 ± 0.07) × 10<sup>-5</sup> cm<sup>2</sup> V<sup>-1</sup>, and detection time down to 3 ms. These detectors also show high X-ray detection sensitivity of 16,612 μC Gy<sub>abs</sub><sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-3</sup>, detection of limit of 20 nGy<sub>air</sub> s<sup>-1</sup>, and long-term stability after 690 Gy<sub>air</sub> irradiation.