PFI-TT: Cost-Effective OLED-based Infrared Sensor for Commercial Implementation

This project is jointly funded by PFI Program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to develop cost-effective and high-resolution sensors using an innovative semiconductor structure called organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Currently many inexpensive silicon-based image sensors are used in various consumer cameras, but these are limited to what the human eye can see. Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) based infrared image sensors do not have this limitation, but these are expensive and lack resolution quality, preventing them from being implemented into household products. Until now, there has been no affordable infrared sensor technology suitable for a wide range of commercial applications. The proposed cost-effective OLED-based infrared sensor technology will eliminate all of these limitations, making implementation of this technology into household products possible. The proposed project aims to develop an innovative OLED-based infrared sensor prototype using the unique optical readout integrated circuit (ROIC) integration approach. Unlike traditional InGaAs-based short-wave infrared (SWIR) image technology with prices of $10,000 and more, and limited pixel resolution of about 1 megapixel, the proposes OLED-based infrared sensor structure will make these cheaper (< $500) and high-resolution (> 100 megapixels). The infrared sensors will have unique features to achieve these goals: (1) epitaxial-free colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) will be used as the SWIR sensitive material, and (2) the SWIR-to-visible up-conversion OLED with CQDs will directly convert SWIR images to visible images. In this unique SWIR image sensor structure, inexpensive off-the-shelf visible image sensors will be used for optical readout. This revolutionary SWIR image sensor will be fabricated by simply stacking a SWIR sensitive OLED only optically (not electronically) on an inexpensive image sensor. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.