High-Capacity, Fast-Response, and Photocapacitor-Based Terpolymer Phosphor Composite

• Published in: Polymers Vol. 12; no. 2; p. 349
• Main Authors: Mokni, Marwa, Pedroli, Francesco, D'Ambrogio, Giulia, Le, Minh-Quyen, Cottinet, Pierre-Jean, Capsal, Jean-Fabien
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI 06.02.2020; MDPI AG
• Subjects: artificial retinal prosthetic device; Engineering Sciences; light sensor; phosphor/terpolymer composite; photocapacitive detector; photoelectrical conversion; phosphor/terpolymer composite; artificial retinal prosthetic device; light sensor; photocapacitive detector; photoelectrical conversion
• ISSN: 2073-4360; 2073-4360
• DOI: 10.3390/polym12020349

This paper describes a new class of light transducer-based poly (vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorotrifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE)) terpolymer doped with 50% wt. phosphor particles that enables to efficiently transform light energy into an electrical signal. Broadband dielectric characterization together with experimental results on photo-electric conversion demonstrated high capacitance variation of the proposed composite under light exposure, confirming promising potential of our sensor device for application in retinal prostheses where the converted electrical signal can affect the biological activity of the neuron system. In addition to the benefit of being light-weight, having ultra-flexibility, and used in a simple process, the proposed photodetector composite leads to fast response and high sensibility in terms of photoelectrical coupling where significant increases in capacitance change of 78% and 25% have been recorded under blue and green light sources, respectively. These results demonstrated high-performance material design where phosphor filler contributes to promote charge-discharge efficiency as well as reduced dielectric loss in P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE), which facilitate the composite for flexible light transducer applications, especially in the medical environment.