Electronic waste is one of the fastest growing kinds of waste in the world, and to reduce which, the biodegradable electronics are regarded as an important eco-friendly alternative to the environmentally hazardous ones. Here, biodegradable indium-tin-oxide (ITO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are fabricated on flexible PET substrates with pectin-based polysaccharide films taken as gate dielectrics. For the basic performance, such biodegradable TFTs have not only exhibited excellent characteristics such as a low operating voltage of 1.0 V, a high current ON/OFF ratio (>107), a low subthreshold swing of 80 mV/dec, and a carrier mobility of 14.5 cm2V–1 s–1, but have also realized several important logic operations, such as NOT, AND, NAND, and so on. Additionally, for the eco-friendly purpose, the TFT arrays can be completely dissolved in water within 20 min. Based on the results achieved, the pectin-based biodegradable oxide transistors prepared here are expected to provide a possible choice for the fabrication of biodegradable electronics by using natural biomaterials.

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Scandium oxide (Sc2O3) is an ultrawide band gap (5.2–6.3 eV) semiconductor with excellent heat and moisture resistance, which has great potential for being applied to high-performance solar-blind ultraviolet (SBUV) photodetectors. In this work, an amorphous-Sc2O3 (ScO x ) film was prepared by a solution method and used as a photosensitive layer of SBUV photodetectors. Based on the Pt/ScO x Schottky junction, a humidity-resistant ScO x SBUV photodetector was fabricated on a highly doped GaN substrate (n+-GaN) with excellent performance exhibited, including a high photoresponsivity of 5.77 mA/W as well as a high detectivity of 1.73 × 1011 Jones at 0 V bias and under 258 nm irradiation. Meanwhile, a characteristic of good humidity resistance exhibited by this device after a long-term placement (more than 2 weeks) at high humidity of 85% is very significant for the operation in an environment with variable humidities. This study can help to promote the application of Sc2O3 in the field of photodetectors and provide an option for the materials needed for the preparation of SBUV photodetectors.