High-performance aggregation-induced emission active poly(ether sulfone)s as polymeric electret for energy-saving genuine photonic transistor memory

Next-generation photo-driven memory devices and artificial neuromorphic networks have shown great promise in adopting organic photo-recordable devices because of their tremendous merits, highly tailorable structures, facile processing, and low power consumption. There are generally-two operation approaches, light-assistant and genuine methods, that can be divided into categories based on whether to apply electrical biasing (VGS or VDS) during the photo-programming process. The genuine type manifests glamorous characteristics in optical communication and neural computation due to the exclusion of additional electric consumption. Nevertheless, there is a lack of investigation into the relationship between the genuine photo-programming process and the design strategy of polymeric electrets. This work is the first to employ triphenylamine (TPA)-based aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active poly(ether sulfone)s as the electret layer of a photonic transistor memory device to elaborate photo-induced programming. Every chemical building block, AIE-active TPA, ether, and sulfone moieties, has been soundly elucidated and plays an indispensable role in possessing high-performance homopolymer-based photonic memory, including enhancement of photo-induced recording, outstanding retention (14 days), and reducing the working voltage (VGS = 0 V and VDS = −5 V). This study presents an eye-catching design strategy for creating polymer-based photonic memory that also satisfies energy-saving criteria in practice.