Mimicking Sensory Adaptation with Dielectric Engineered Organic Transistors

Abstract

Mimicking sensory adaptation with transistors is essential for developing next-generation smart circuits. A key challenge is how to obtain controllable and reversible short-term signal decay while simultaneously maintaining long-term electrical stability. By introducing a buried dynamic-trapping interface within the dielectric layer, an organic adaptive transistor (OAT) with sensory adaptation functionality is developed. The device induces self-adaptive interfacial trapping to enable volatile shielding of the gating field, thereby leading to rapid and temporary carrier concentration decay in the conductive channel without diminishing the mobility upon a fixed voltage bias. More importantly, the device exhibits a fine-tuned decay constant ranging from 50 ms to 5 s, accurately matching the adaptation timescales in bio-systems. This not only suggests promising applications of OATs in flexible artificial intelligent elements, but also provides a strategy for engineering organic devices toward novel biomimetic functions.

Keywords: bioelectronic device; interface engineering; organic adaptive transistor; organic transistor; sensory adaptation.