Numerical investigations on the current conduction in bilayer organic light-emitting devices with ohmic injection of charge carriers

A numerical model for bilayer organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has been developed on the basis of trapped charge limited conduction. The dependences of the current density on the operation voltage, the thickness and trap properties of the hole transport layer (HTL) and emission layer (EML) in bilayer OLEDs of the structure anode/HTL/EML/cathode have been numerically investigated. It has been found that, for given values of reduced trap depth, total trap density, and cv~rrier mobility of HTL and EML, there exists an optimum thickness ratio of HTL to the sum of HTL and EML, by which a maximal current density, and hence maximal quantum efficiency and luminance,can be achieved. The current density decreases quickly with the mean trap density, and decreases nearly exponentially with the mean reduced trap depth.     

Numerical analysis of the mechanism of carrier transport in organic light—emitting devces

The mechanism of carrier transport in organic light-emitting devices is numerically studied,on the basis of trappedcharge-limited conduction with an exponential trap distribution.The spatial distributions of the electrical potential,field and carrier density in the organic layer are calculated and analysed.Most carriers are distributed near the two electrodes,only a few of them are distributed over the remaining part of the orgaic layer,The carriers are accumulated near the electrodes,and the remaining region is almost exhausted of carriers.When the characteristic energy of trap distribution is greater than 0.3eV.it leads to a reduction of current density.In order to improve the device efficiency,organic materials with minor traps and low characteristic energy should be chosen.The diffusion current is the dominant component near the injection electrode.whereas the drift current dominates the remaining region of the organic layer.     

Numerical model of multilayer organic light-emitting devices

A numerical model of multilayer organic light-emitting devices is presented in this article. This model is based on the drift-diffusion equations which include charge injection, transport, space charge effects, trapping, heterojunction interface and recombination process. The device structure in the simulation is ITO/CuPc (20 nm)/NPD (40 nm)/Alq3 (60 nm)/LiF/Al. There are two heterojunctions which should be dealt with in the simulation. The I--V characteristics, carrier distribution and recombination rate of a device are calculated. The simulation results and measured data are in good agreement.     

Dependence of charge trapping of fluorescent and phosphorescent dopants in organic light-emitting diodes on the dye species and current density

This paper utilizes multilayer organic light-emitting diodes with a thin layer of dye molecules to study the mechanism of charge trapping under different electric regimes. It demonstrates that the carrier trapping was independent of the current density in devices using fluorescent material as the emitting molecule while this process was exactly opposite when phosphorescent material was used. The triplet--triplet annihilation and dissociation of excitons into free charge carriers was considered to contribute to the decrease in phosphorescent emission under high electric fields. Moreover, the fluorescent dye molecule with a lower energy gap and ionized potential than the host emitter was observed to facilitate the carrier trapping mechanism, and it would produce photon emission.     

Efficient and color-saturated inverted bottom-emitting organic light-emitting devices with a semi-transparent metal-assisted electron injection layer

We report the development of highly efficient and color-saturated green fluorescent 10-(2-benzothiazolyl)-1,1,7,7-tetramethyl-2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H,5H,11H-benzo[l]pyrano-[6,7,8-ij]quinolizin-11-one dye-doped inverted bottom-emitting organic light-emitting diode (IBOLED). This was enabled by the insertion of a silver (Ag) based semi-transparent metal-assisted electron injection layer between the ITO cathode and n-doped electron transporting layer. This IBOLED with ITO/Ag bilayer cathode with its synergistic microcavity effect achieved luminous efficiencies of 20.7 cd/A and 12.4 lm/W and a saturated CIE_x,y of (0.22, 0.72) at 20 mA/cm², which are twice better than those of the conventional OLED and have over 60% improvement on IBOLED without ITO/Ag bilayer cathode.     

Numerical study of the current conduction in single-layer organic light-emitting devices

A numerical model for the current conduction in single-layer organic light-emitting devices is established under the basis of trapped charge-limited conduction with an exponential trap distribution. The dependences of the current density on the operation voltage, the thickness of the organic layer, and the trap properties are numerically studied. The current density decreases nearly exponentially with the thickness of the organic layer and the relative trap depth (l), and it is inversely proportional to the lth power of the total trap density. The results from simulations for the current–voltage characteristics agree very well with those from experiments. PACS 78.60.Fi; 75.40.Mg; 73.21.Ac     

Effects of hole injection layer thickness on the luminescent properties of white organic light-emitting diodes

This work investigates how the thickness of the hole injection layer (HIL) influences the luminescent characteristics of white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLED). Experimental results indicate that inserting a thin HIL (<200 Å) into a WOLED without an HIL reduces the brightness and clearly changes the chromaticity because the surface of the 4,4′,4″-tris{N,-(3-methylphenyl)-N-phenylamino}-triphenylamine) (m-MTDATA) film is extremely rough. In contrast, a dense film structure and the fine surface morphology of m-MTDATA of moderate thickness (350-650 Å) provides a uniform conducting path on which holes cross the indium tin oxide (ITO)/HIL interface, improving luminescent performance, associated with the relatively stable purity of the color of the emission, with Commission Internationale 1′Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (x = 0.40, y = 0.40). However, inserting a thick HIL (>650 Å) reduces the luminescent performance and causes red-shift, because the holes and electrons in the effective emissive confinement region become less optimally balanced. Moreover, optimizing the device structure enables a bright WOLED with CIE coordinates of (x = 0.34, y = 0.33) to reach a luminance of 7685 cd/m² at a current density of 100 mA/cm², with a maximum luminous efficiency of 1.72 lm/W at 5.5 V.     

Efficiency of a blue organic light-emitting diode enhanced by inserting charge control layers into the emission region

We demonstrate high current efficiency of a blue fluorescent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) by using the charge control layers (CCLs) based on Alq3 . The CCLs that are inserted into the emitting layers (EMLs) could impede the hole injection and facilitate the electron transport, which can improve the carrier balance and further expand the exciton generation region. The maximal current efficiency of the optimal device is 5.89 cd/A at 1.81 mA/cm2 , which is about 2.19 times higher than that of the control device (CD) without the CCL, and the maximal luminance is 19.660 cd/m2 at 12V. The device shows a good color stability though the green light emitting material Alq3 is introduced as the CCL in the EML, but it has a poor lifetime due to the formation of cationic Alq3 species.     

White organic light-emitting diodes based on electroplex from polyvinyl carbazole and carbazole oligomers blends

White organic light-emitting diodes with a blue emitting material fluorene-centred ethylene-liked carbazole oligomer (Cz6F) doped into polyvinyl carbazole (PVK) as the single light-emitting layer are reported. The optical properties of Cz6F, PVK, and PVK:Cz6F blends are studied. Single and double layer devices are fabricated by using PVK: Cz6F blends, and the device with the configuration of indium tin oxide (ITO)/PVK:Cz6F/ tris(8-hydroxyquinolinate)aluminium (Alq₃)/LiF/Al exhibits white light emission with Commission Internationale de l'éclairage chromaticity coordinates of (0.30, 0.33) and a brightness of 402~cd/m². The investigation reveals that the white light is composed of a blue--green emission originating from the excimer of Cz6F molecules and a red emission from an electroplex from the PVK:Cz6F blend films.     

Electroluminescence performance of organic light-emitting devices with KCl inside hole transport layer

A new multilayer organic light-emitting device (OLED) is fabricated by inserting kalium chloride (KCl) thin layer (1 nm) into hole transport layer (HTL). It has the configuration of ITO/NPB(15 nm)/KCl(1 nm)/NPB(25 nm)/Alq₃(60 nm)/KCl(1 nm)/Al. The electroluminescence (EL) result shows that the performance of the novel device has obviously improvement compared with the normal structure (ITO/NPB(40 nm)/Alq₃(60 nm)/KCl(1 nm)/Al). The EL and efficiency are about 1.4 and 1.3 times than that of conventional device. The suggested mechanism is that the KCl layer in N,N′-diphenyl-N,N′-bis(1-napthyl–phenyl)-1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamine (NPB) can block the holes of NPB and then balance the holes and electrons. The better recombination of holes and electrons is beneficial to the enhancing properties of OLED.     

Performance improvement of GaN-based light-emitting diode with a p-InAIGaN hole injection layer

The characteristics of a blue light-emitting diode （LED） with a p-InA1GaN hole injection layer （HIL） is analyzed numerically. The simulation results indicate that the newly designed structure presents superior optical and electrical performance such as an increase in light output power, a reduction in current leakage and alleviation of efficiency droop. These improvements can be attributed to the p-InA1GaN serving as hole injection layers, which can alleviate the band bending induced by the polarization field, thereby improving both the hole injection efficiency and the electron blocking efficiency.