Owing to its advantages of solution processing, lightweight, low cost, and mechanical flexibility, organic photodetectors (OPDs) have attracted great interest and become a new member of the photodetector (PD) family. Currently, OPDs have made considerable progress and can be compared with traditional PDs in some aspects. They present potential applications in portable and wearable devices. However, there are still some issues that need to be overcome, and there is much room for new development. Herein, the significant advances of OPDs are summarized and discussed, and the future for OPDs is prospected from the aspects of materials, structures, and applications. This essay can inspire new ideas for developing innovative high‐performance OPDs and exploring their practical applications.

Organic photodetectors (OPDs), which usually work as photodiodes, photoconductors, or phototransistors, have emerged as candidates for next‐generation light sensing. However, low response speed caused by low carrier mobility and resistance‐capacitance (RC) time constant, severely hinders the commercialization of OPDs. Herein, the authors demonstrate a state‐of‐the‐art OPD with a record response speed of 146.8 ns by employing tandem structure to simultaneously reduce both the carrier transit time and RC time constant of the device, which is faster than that of previously reported OPDs as far as they know. Moreover, benefitting from the multi‐level barrier enhancement and voltage division engendered by tandem structure, an ultralow noise current of 7.82 × 10−14 A Hz−1/2 is obtained, as well as a wide detection range in 300–1000 nm. In addition, the tandem OPDs are successfully integrated into the optical communication system as signal receivers, demonstrating the precise digital signal communication from visible to near‐infrared light. It is believed that tandem OPDs have promising application potential in the wireless transmission system.

No abstract