Drosophila Visual System Inspired Ambipolar OFET for Motion Detection

Drosophila can rapidly and precisely detect changes in light in their surroundings and achieve acute perception of motion information with high energy efficiency and adaptivity owing to the cooperation of “ON” channel and the “OFF” channel in its visual system. Optical controlled bidirectional synaptic behavior of neuromorphic device is important for modeling parallel processing channels of Drosophila's visual system. In this study, an ambipolar transistor utilizing a bilayer architecture composed of p-type pentacene and n-type C₆₀ as semiconductors is developed, with near-infrared (NIR) PbS quantum dots serving as the charge-trapping layer. This design enables a gate-tunable positive and negative photoresponse, driven by photogating and photovoltaic effects at visible and NIR wavelengths. When regulated by a negative gate voltage, the device exhibits a suppressed photocurrent relaxation time exceeding 1000 s, demonstrating stable long-term inhibitory characteristics. Consequently, high-contrast excitatory and inhibitory synapses facilitate orientation and motion detection. Identification accuracies of up to 94.8% for motion direction and 98.1% for dynamic gestures are achieved. Practical applications such as intelligent monitoring and human–computer interaction stand to benefit significantly from these findings.