Unique Performance Considerations for Printable Organic Semiconductor and Perovskite Radiation Detectors: Toward Consensus on Best Practice Evaluation

Abstract

Metal halide perovskites and organic semiconductors have attracted intense interest for ionizing radiation detection due to their advantages of strong attenuation, low leakage currents, synthetic versatility, and simple device manufacturing. These materials present opportunities to develop devices for safer medical imaging and dosimetry, sensing, shielding technologies for space exploration, and improved non-invasive analysis for security, product inspection, and nuclear safety. However, there is currently a glaring lack of standard approaches for testing and reporting the performance of novel organic semiconductor and perovskite-based materials and device architectures for radiation detection. This absence of standardization has resulted in a recent exponential increase in publications that lack consistency in both the experimental procedures used for characterization and the interpretation of performance parameters reported. In this Perspective, the major photophysics of organic semiconductors and perovskite materials under high-energy radiation are summarized, with limitations in evaluating radiation detection performance using metrics designed for highly crystalline inorganic technologies discussed. Finally, key metrics and experimental details that are suggested for reporting in publications to improve reproducibility and enable large data set analysis are identified, noting these procedures are not intended as an exhaustive or definitive list, but rather as a milestone toward enabling improved standardization.