Light-insensitive organic solar-powered amplifiers
Wearable bio-sensors using organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) powered by flexible organic solar cells (OSCs) show promise for electrophysiological monitoring. However, single OECT bio-sensors face unstable outputs due to the limitations of OSCs under low-light conditions and poor energy autonomy. Here, we show a low-power self-powered physiological sensor employing a dual-OECTs configuration, connected in series and powered by the optimized OSCs, which shows more stable signal output and faster response compared to single OECT bio-sensors. Our devices employ the efficient and more stable OSCs to power amplifier by suppressing charge recombination and improving flexibility, thereby facilitating long-term, on-demand use. This integrated device can be attached to human-skin to stably monitor signals, including electrocardiograms, electromyograms and electrooculograms across a wide range of illumination intensities (500 lux-50,000 lux). The design offers a simple architecture for wearable low-power self-powered bio-sensors without external energy supplies/storage, highlighting their potential in real-time disease diagnosis and prevention scenarios.
Authors
- Xiaomin Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9903-3798)
- Sen Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1823-6508)
- Alex K.‐Y. Jen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9219-7749)
- Qiang Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1450-1557)
- Wei Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7239-2010)
- Haiming Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7747-9054)
- Xinyue Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0438-0576)
- Wei Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0992-9030)
- Ke Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4792-4430)
- Chen Zeng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5421-937X)
- Shijie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4760-0471)
- Jun Tao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3892-4199)
- Long Jiang
Institutions
- City University of Hong Kong (HK)
- University Town of Shenzhen (CN)
- Tsinghua–Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering (CN)
- Zhejiang University (CN)
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
- China National Petroleum Corporation (China) (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-11-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65640-z
- Primary Topic
- Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Office of Science
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Basic Energy Sciences