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Exciton management and balanced charge-carrier transport enable efficient organic field-effect light-emitting transistors

Nature Photonics volume 20, pages 109–118 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Organic light-emitting transistors integrate the switching ability of a transistor with the emissive property of an organic light-emitting diode. Among them, organic field-effect light-emitting transistors (OFE-LETs) have recently gained increasing attention due to their simplified device structure, low leakage current and ease of integration. However, OFE-LETs often suffer from unbalanced electron and hole transport, leading to a low radiative recombination efficiency in the emissive layer and low device efficiency. Here we present a promising device architecture in which the functions of charge-carrier transport and light emission are spatially separated, enabling precise exciton management. The use of carbazole/oxadiazole hybrid molecules coupled with a strong electron-withdrawing cyano moiety results in balanced charge-carrier transport, creating a broad exciton recombination zone and enhancing the radiative recombination efficiency. Accordingly, red, green and blue OFE-LETs achieve peak external quantum efficiencies of 18.4, 21.2 and 14.4%, and current efficiencies of 26.9, 78.0 and 31.7 cd A−1, respectively. These values rank among the highest for organic light-emitting transistors so far. Furthermore, the patterned OFE-LET arrays with an aperture ratio of over 60% and pixel circuits that exhibit only 5.6% parasitic power dissipation demonstrate promising potential for low-power-consumption display technologies.

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Fig. 1: Theoretical calculations and transport properties of the bipolar host materials.
Fig. 2: Device structure and optical simulation for OFE-LET architecture.
Fig. 3: Transfer and output characteristics of green OFE-LETs based on different bipolar host materials doped with Ir(ppy)2(acac).
Fig. 4: Device performance of the bipolar host-based OFE-LETs.
Fig. 5: Static visualized arrays of OFE-LETs.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Crystallographic data for the structure reported in this Article are available from the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre with the following code: o-4CNCzOXD (CCDC 2449166). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 62288102, 62350013, 52573283 and 52303325), the Basic Research Program of Jiangsu (BK20243057), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023YFB3608900), the Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by the China Association for Science and Technology (grant number YESS20200146) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Donghai Li, Yuchen Hou, Jian Wang, Shen Xing.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (LoFE) and Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), MIIT Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China

    Donghai Li, Yuchen Hou, Zihong Shen, Xiaowang Liu, Weidong Xu, Zhongbin Wu & Wei Huang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (LoFE) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China

    Jian Wang, Yeting Tao, Wenbo Yuan, Youtian Tao & Wei Huang

  3. Dresden Integrated Center for Applied Physics and Photonic Materials (IAPP), Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Shen Xing & Karl Leo

  4. School of Instrument Science and Optoelectronic Engineering, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China

    Yuan Liu

  5. State Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (LoFE) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China

    Xiangchun Li & Wei Huang

  6. School of Flexible Electronics (SoFE) and State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies (OEMT), Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China

    Wei Huang

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Contributions

Z.W., Youtian Tao and W.H. supervised the project. Z.W. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. D.L. and Y.H. were responsible for device fabrication, characterization and data analysis. J.W. and Yeting Tao contributed to the material synthesis and compound structural characterization. Z.S. carried out calibration of the measurement equipment. Y.L. performed the optical simulations. W.Y. conducted the density functional theory calculations. D.L., Z.W. and Youtian Tao wrote the first draught of the paper. S.X., W.Y., X. Liu, W.X., X. Li, K.L. and W.H. participated in data analysis and revised the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhongbin Wu, Youtian Tao or Wei Huang.

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Nature Photonics thanks Shih-Chun Lo, Caterina Soldano and the other, anonymous, reviewer for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Figs. 1–32 and Tables 1–11.

Supplementary Video 1 (download MOV )

On/off switching process of the OFE-LETs

Supplementary Video 2 (download MOV )

Dynamic OFE-LET pixel

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1 (download XLSX )

J–V curves for the carrier-only devices.

Source Data Fig. 3 (download XLSX )

Transfer and output curves of the OFE-LETs.

Source Data Fig. 4 (download XLSX )

Device performance of the OFE-LETs.

Source Data Fig. 5 (download XLSX )

Dynamic emission characteristics of the OFE-LET pixels.

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Li, D., Hou, Y., Wang, J. et al. Exciton management and balanced charge-carrier transport enable efficient organic field-effect light-emitting transistors. Nat. Photon. 20, 109–118 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01793-z

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