Highly Sensitive, Visible Blind, Wearable, and Omnidirectional Near-Infrared Photodetectors

Visible blind near-infrared (NIR) photodetection is essential when it comes to weapons used by military personnel, narrow band detectors used in space navigation systems, medicine, and research studies. The technological field of filterless visible blind, NIR omnidirectional photodetection and wearability is at a preliminary stage. Here, we present a filterless and lightweight design for a visible blind and wearable NIR photodetector capable of harvesting light omnidirectionally. The filterless NIR photodetector comprises the integration of distinct features of lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), graphene, and micropyramidal poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) film. The lanthanide-doped UCNPs are designed such that the maximum narrow band detection of NIR is easily accomplished by the photodetector even in the presence of visible light sources. Especially, the 4f ⁿ electronic configuration of lanthanide dopant ions provides for a multilevel hierarchical energy system that provides for longer lifetime of the excited states for photogenerated charge carriers to transfer to the graphene layer. The graphene layer can serve as an outstanding conduction path for photogenerated charge carrier transfer from UCNPs, and the flexible micropyramidal PDMS substrate provides an excellent platform for omnidirectional NIR light detection. Owing to these advantages, a photoresponsivity of ∼800 AW^-1 is achieved by the NIR photodetector, which is higher than the values ever reported by UCNPs-based photodetectors. In addition, the photodetector is stretchable, durable, and transparent, making it suitable for next-generation wearable optoelectronic devices.