Electron-irradiated n+-Si as hole injection tunable anode of organic light-emitting diode

Traditionally, n-type silicon is not regarded as a good anode of organic light emitting diode (OLED) due to the extremely low hole concentration in it; however, when doped with Au element which acts as carrier generation centers, it can be, as shown in our previous work. In this study, we demonstrate a new kind of carrier generation centers in n⁺-type silicon, which are the defects produced by 5 MeV electron irradiation. The density of carrier generation centers in the irradiated n⁺-Si anode can be controlled by tuning the electron irradiation time, and thus hole injection current in the OLEDs with the irradiated n⁺-Si anode can be optimized, leading to their much higher maximum efficiencies than those of the OLEDs with non-irradiated n⁺-Si anode. For a green phosphorescent OLED with the irradiated n⁺-Si anode, the current efficiency and power efficiency reach up to 12.1 cd/A and 4.2 lm/W, respectively.