Abstract
Organic photodiodes (OPDs) have shown great promise for potential applications in optical imaging, sensing, and communication due to their wide-range tunable photoelectrical properties, low-temperature facile processes, and excellent mechanical flexibility. Extensive research work has been carried out on exploring materials, device structures, physical mechanisms, and processing approaches to improve the performance of OPDs to the level of their inorganic counterparts. In addition, various system prototypes have been built based on the exhibited and attractive features of OPDs. It is vital to link the device optimal design and engineering to the system requirements and examine the existing deficiencies of OPDs towards practical applications, so this review starts from discussions on the required key performance metrics for different envisioned applications. Then the fundamentals of the OPD device structures and operation mechanisms are briefly introduced, and the latest development of OPDs for improving the key performance merits is reviewed. Finally, the trials of OPDs for various applications including wearable medical diagnostics, optical imagers, spectrometers, and light communications are reviewed, and both the promises and challenges are revealed.