Characterization of amorphous organic thin films, determination of precise model for spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements

The optical properties of tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq₃), N,N′-diphenyl-N,N′-bis(1-naphthyl)-1-1′biphenyl-4,4″diamine (α-NPD) and other amorphous organic materials for OLEDs application, e.g. 4,4-bis(2,2-diphenyl vinyl)-1,1-biphenyl (DPVBI) and Spiro-DPVBI have been studied by multi-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The thin films of these materials have been deposited by organic vapor phase deposition (OVPD). The structural characterization has been performed using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray reflectometry (XRR). Comparison of the measurements using these different independent techniques enables the precise determination of the optical model for dielectric function of these thin films. The detail analyses on Alq₃ and α-NPD show that the Kim model with Gaussian broadening provides a significantly better fit to the ellipsometry data than the frequently used harmonic oscillator model. This conclusion is further proved by performing similar measurements on other amorphous organic samples for OLEDs application, e.g. DPVBI and Spiro-DPVBI. This result can be explained by the characteristic features of electronic states in organic molecules.