Threshold voltage modulation of polymer transistors by photoinduced charge–transfer between donor–acceptor dyads

Abstract In this work, the photoinduced optoelectronic properties of a conjugated polymer from device characterization and quantum calculations have been studied. It was demonstrated that the photosensitive conjugated polymer with electron donor–acceptor dyad (6) which contains a terthiophene unit, can modulate charge accumulation by photoirradiation resulting in a threshold voltage shift in the polymer field-effect transistors (PFETs) while this effect of the photoinactive polymer (5) containing a thienothiophene unit is negligible. These results suggest that the feasible molecular design strategies can provide an effective platform to achieve controllable threshold voltage modulation in PFETs.