Effects of doped dye on the charge carrier injection, transport, and electroluminescent performance in polymeric light-emitting diodes

The effects of doped fluorescent dye 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-i-propyl-6-(1, 1, 7, 7-tetramethyljulolidyl-9-enyl)-4H-pyran (DCJTI) on the charge carrier injection, transport and electroluminescence (EL) performance in polyfluorene (PFO)-based polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) were investigated by steady-state current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and transient EL measurements. A red EL from DCJTI was observed and the EL performance depended strongly on the DCJTI concentration. The analysis of the steady-state I-V characteristics at different DCJTI concentrations found that three regions was shown in the I-V characteristics, and each region was controlled by different processes depending on the applied electric field. The effect of the dopant concentration on the potential-barrier height of the interface is estimated using the Fowler-Nordheim model. The dopant concentration dependence of the current-voltage relationship indicated clearly the carrier trapping by the DCJTI molecules. The mobility in DCJTI: PFO changed significantly with the DCJTI concentration, and showed a nontrivial dependence on the doping level. The behavior may be understood in terms of the formation of an additional energy disorder due to potential fluctuation caused by the Coulomb interaction of the randomly distributed doping molecules.

Efficient red organic light-emitting diodes based on a dinuclear europium complex

Pure red organic light-emitting diodes based on a dinuclear europium complex with a structure of (TTA)(3)Eu(PYO)(2)Eu(TTA)3 (TTA = thenoyltrifluoroacetonate, PYO = pyridine N-oxide) were presented. The devices showed pure red emission at a peak wavelength of 612 nm with a full width at half maximum of 3 nm, which is a characteristic emission from Eu3+ ion based on D-5(0) -> F-7(2) transition. The maximum brightness and electroluminescent (EL) efficiency reached 340 cd/m(2) at a driving voltage of 19 V and 2.4 cd/A (0.78 lm/W) at a current density of 0.14 mA/cm(2), respectively.

Improved electron injection in organic light-emitting devices with a lithium acetylacetonate [Li(acac)]/aluminium bilayer cathode

Lithium acetylacetonate [Li(acac)] covered with aluminium was used as an efficient electron injection layer in organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) consisting of NPB as the hole transport layer and Alq(3) as the electron transport and light emitting layer, resulting in lower turn- on voltage and increased current efficiency. The turn- on voltage (the voltage at a luminance of 1 cd m(-2)) was decreased from 5.5 V for the LiF/Al and 4.4 V for Ca/Al to 4.0 V for Li(acac)/Al, and the device current efficiency was enhanced from 4.71 and 5.2 to 7.0 cd A(-1). The performance tolerance to the layer thickness of Li(acac) is also better than that of the device with LiF. LiF can only be used when deposited as an ultra- thin layer because of its highly insulating nature, while the Li(acac) can be as thick as 5 nm without significantly affecting the EL performance. We suppose that the free lithium released from Li(acac) improves the electron injection when Li(acac) is covered with an Al cathode.

Tunability of resonant wavelength by Fabry-Perot microcavity in organic light-emitting diodes

Distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) with different reflection wavelengths were designed, and were used to fabricate microcavity organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) based on tris(8-hydroxyquinoline)-aluminum (Alq(3)) as the emitter and N, N'-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N, N'-diphenyl-benzidine (NPB) as the hole-transporting layer. The microcavity was composed of DBR dielectric mirror and metal electrode aluminum (Al) mirror. Some effects of vertical optical Fabry-Perot microcavity on spontaneous emission in OLEDs were investigated. Spectral narrowing, enhancement of emitting intensity and anglular dependence of emission were observed due to the microcavity effect. It was found experimentally that the utilization of DBR is a better method to adjust the emissive mode in the resonant cavity in OLEDs well. Thus the realization of different color light emission becomes possible by the combination of carefully designed microcavity and electroluminescent organic semiconductors in a single LED.

High-efficiency blue light-emitting diodes based on a polyphenylphenyl compound with strong electron-accepting groups

The synthesis and characterization of two new polyphenylphenyl compounds is reported. One compound (CPP) acts as a blue light-emitting material, but contains strong electron-accepting groups that form exciplexes with electron-donating arylamines that are widely used as hole-transporting materials. Inserting a layer of the other compound into the organic light-emitting diodes (see figure) suppresses the formation of exciplexes, and gives high-efficiency blue-light emission from the CPP layer.

Charge ordering induced metal-semiconductor transition in Ag2BiO3: A first-principles study

Accurate ab initio density-functional calculations are performed to investigate the relationship of the ground-state crystal structures and electronic properties of Ag2BiO3 compound. The results indicate that Ag2BiO3 in Pnna phase, in which the bismuth atoms occupy the same Wyckoff positions, exhibits metallic conductivity, while in Pnn2 and Pn phases, Ag2BiO3 exhibits semiconducting character, which is in agreement with the experimental results. Charge ordering is indeed induced by the crystal inversion twin in the Pnn2 phase compared with the Pnna phase. In the low temperature phase Pn, the charge ordering is similar to that of Pnn2 phase although it is more distorted in Pn phase. In addition, the calculation indicates that the charge ordering is caused in the 6s electron rearrangement.

Novel heteroleptic Cu-I complexes with tunable emission color for efficient phosphorescent light-emitting diodes

A series of orange-red to red phosphorescent heteroleptic Cu-I complexes (the first ligand: 2,2 '-biquinoline (bq), 4,4 '-diphenyl2,2 '-biquinoline (dpbq) or 3,3 '-methylen-4,4 '-diphenyl-2,2 '-biquinoline (mdpbq); the second ligand: triphenylphosphine or bis[2-(diphenylphosphino)phenyl]ether (DPEphos)) have been synthesized and fully characterized. With highly rigid bulky biquinoline-type ligands, complexes [Cu(mdpbq)(PPh3)(2)](BF4) and [Cu(mdpbq)(DPEphos)](BF4) emit efficiently in 20 wt % PMMA films with photoluminescence quantum yield of 0.56 and 0.43 and emission maximum of 606 nm and 617 nm, respectively. By doping these complexes in poly(vinyl carbazole) (PVK) or N-(4-(carbazol-9-yl)phenyl)-3,6-bis(carbazol-9-yl) carbazole (TCCz), phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) were fabricated with various device structures. The complex [Cu(mdpbq)(DPEphos)](BF4) exhibits the best device performance. With the device structure of ITO/PEDOT/ TCCz:[Cu(mdpbq)(DPEphos)](BF4) (15 wt %)/TPBI/LiF/Al (III), a current efficiency up to 6.4 cd A(-1) with the Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.61, 0.39) has been realized. To our best knowledge, this is the first report of efficient mononuclear Cu complexes with red emission.

Negative differential resistance and memory effect in diodes based on 1,4-dibenzyl C60 and zinc phthalocyanine doped polystyrene hybrid material

Negative differential resistance (NDR) and memory effect were observed in diodes based on 1,4-dibenzyl C60 (DBC) and zinc phthalocyanine doped polystyrene hybrid material. Certain negative starting sweeping voltages led to a reproducible NDR, making the hybrid material a promising candidate in memory devices. It was found that the introduction of DBC enhanced the ON/OFF current ratio and significantly improved the memory stability. The ON/OFF current ratio was up to 2 orders of magnitude. The write-read-erase-reread cycles were more than 10(6), and the retention time reached 10 000 s without current degradation.

Effect of dye concentration on the charge carrier transport in molecularly doped organic light-emitting diodes

The effect of the concentration of 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-t-butyl-6-(1,1,7, 7-tetramethyljulolidyl-9-enyl)-4H-pyran (DCJTB) as dopant in tris(8-quinolinolato) aluminum (Alq(3)) on the charge carrier transport in Alq(3):DCJTB was investigated by measuring the steady current-voltage characteristics and the transient electroluminescence. The dopant concentration dependence of the current-voltage relationship clearly indicates the carrier trapping by the DCJTB molecule. The DCJTB concentration significantly affects the electron mobility in Alq(3):DCJTB. The mobility has a nontrivial dependence on the doping level. For relatively low doping levels, less than 1%, the electron mobility of Alq(3):DCJTB decreases with the doping level. An increasing mobility is then observed if the dopant concentration is further increased, followed by a decrease for doping levels larger than similar to2%. The change of the electron mobility with the DCJTB concentration in Alq(3) is attributed to the additional energetic disorder due to potential fluctuations caused by the dipole-dipole interaction of random distribution dopant at the relatively low doping concentration, and to the phase separation at the high doping concentration.

Modeling of organic light-emitting diodes with graded concentration in the emissive multilayer

We model the electrical behavior of organic light-emitting diodes whose emissive multilayer is formed by blends of an electron transporting material, tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq(3)) and a hole transporting material, N,N-'-diphenyl-N,N-'-bis(1,1(')-biphenyl)-4,4-diamine. The multilayer is composed of layers of different concentration. The Alq(3) concentration gradually decreases from the cathode to the anode. We demonstrate that these graded devices have higher efficiency and operate at lower applied voltages than devices whose emissive layer is made of nominally homogeneous blends. Our results show an important advantage of graded devices, namely, the low values of the recombination rate distribution near the cathode and the anode, so that electrode quenching is expected to be significantly suppressed in these devices.

Highly efficient green phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes based on Cu-I complexes

Mononuclear Cu-I complexes with mixed ligands are used to fabricate green phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes. The electroluminescence (EL) maximum at 524 nm coincides well with its photoluminescent (PL) spectrum in poly(methyl methacrylate) film (see Figure). A maximum current efficiency of 10.5 cd A(-1) at 105 cd m(-2) and a maximum brightness up to 1663 cd m(-2) are

Naphthyl end-capped quarterthiophene: A simple organic semiconductor with high mobility and air stability

An organic semiconductor that can be mass produced is synthesized by end-capping quaterthiophene with naphthyl units (NaT4). An organic thin-film transistor (OTFT, see figure) has been fabricated using this organic semiconductor, and exhibits stability under ambient conditions with a mobility of up to 0.40 cm(2) V-1 s(-1).

Highly efficient pure-white-light-emitting diodes from a single polymer: Polyfluorene with naphthalimide moieties

Light-emitting diodes exhibiting efficient pure-white-light electroluminescence have been successfully developed by using a single polymer: polyfluorene derivatives with 1,8-naphthalimide chromophores chemically doped onto the polyfluorene backbones. By adjusting the emission wavelength of the 1,8-naphthalimide components and optimizing the relative content of 1,8-naphthalimide derivatives in the resulting polymers, white-light electroluminescence from a single polymer, as opposed to a polymer blend, has been obtained in a device with a configuration of indium tin oxide/poly(3,4-ethyleiledioxythiophene)(50 nm)/polymer(80 nm)/Ca(10 nm)/Al(100 nm). The device exhibits Commission Internationale de I'Eclairage coordinates of (0.32,0.36), a maximum brightness of 11900 cd m(-2), a current efficiency of 3.8 cd A(-1), a power efficiency of 2.0 lm W-1. an external quantum efficiency of 1.50 %, and quite stable color coordinates at different driving voltages, even at high luminances of over 5000 cd m(-2).

Semiconductor "nano-onions" with multifold alternating CdS/CdSe or CdSe/CdS structure

"Nano-onions" with multifold alternating CdS/CdSe or CdSe/CdS structure have been synthesized via a two-phase approach. The influences of shell on photoluminescence (PL) quantum yields (QYs) and PL lifetimes are investigated and discussed. It is found that the outmost shell plays an important role in the PL QYs and PL lifetimes of the multishells "onion-like" nanocrystals. The PL QYs and PL lifetimes fluctuate regularly with CdSe and CdS shells. The PL QY increases when the nanocrystals have an outmost CdS shell; however, it decreases dramatically with the outmost CdSe shell. The trend of the change of PL lifetimes is consistent with that of the QYs. The crystal structure and composition of the novel nano-onions are characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectra techniques.

White polymeric light-emitting diodes with high color rendering index

The efficient white polymeric light-emitting diodes based on a white emissive polymer doped with a red phosphorescent dopant were fabricated by spin-coating method. The emission spectrum of the device is broadened to cover the full visible region by doping the red phosphorescent dye and thereby realizes white emission with high color-rendering index (CRI). By controlling the contents of the doped electron-transporting 2-(4-biphenylyl)-5-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole and the red phosphorescent dopant, a luminous efficiency as high as 5.3 cd/A and a power efficiency of 3 lm/W were obtained with a CRI of 92.