Sub-Band Gap Turn-On Near-Infrared-to-Visible Up-Conversion Device Enabled by an Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Perovskite Photovoltaic Absorber

Direct integration of an infrared (IR) photodetector with an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) enables low-cost, pixel-free IR imaging. However, the operation voltage of the resulting IR-to-visible up-conversion is large because of the series device architecture. Here, we report a low-voltage near-IR (NIR)-to-visible up-conversion device using formamidinium lead iodide as a NIR absorber integrated with a phosphorescent OLED. Because of the efficient photocarrier injection from the hybrid perovskite layer to the OLED, we observed a sub-band gap turn-on of the OLED under NIR illumination. The device showed a NIR-to-visible up-conversion efficiency of 3% and a luminance on/off ratio of 10³ at only 5 V. Finally, we demonstrate pixel-free NIR imaging using the up-conversion device.