Flexible organic-inorganic hybrid photodetectors with n-type phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and p-type pearl-like GaP nanowires

Flexible photodetectors have become a focus of current researches because they may offer some unique applications in various new areas that require flexible, lightweight, and mechanical shock-resistive sensing elements. In this work, we designed flexible organic-inorganic hybrid photodetectors on various flexible substrates, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), common Sellotape and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), with n-type phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and p-type pearl-like GaP nanowires (NWs) as the active materials. The as-fabricated hybrid devices exhibited an optimized performance superior to the device made of pristine GaP NWs, with a fast response time (43 ms) and high on/off ratio (∼170). Under different bending conditions, the flexible hybrid photodetectors demonstrated excellent flexibility and electrical stability, which make them very promising for further large-scale, high sensitivity and high speed photodetector applications.

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