Detectors based on organic materials: status and perspectives

Organic semiconductors have obtained considerable success in the realization of light emitting devices and transistors and have recently been proposed for the construction of ionizing radiation detectors. This paper, after a short introduction of the peculiar electrical characteristics of the organic materials, reviews few of the detector realizations presented to date in the field of visible and IR light detection and of alpha-particle detection and suggests possible extensions of their use also in the X- and γ-ray spectral region.