Excitons, OLED

The picture presented above for confinement of the excitons within the device is for the EM layer sandwiched between the HTL and ETL. The EM need not be a discrete layer in the OLED, however, for exciton confinement to occur. Alternatively, the EM can consist of a luminescent molecule doped (- 1%) into a polymeric or molecular host material (40,41,54,55). So long as the energy gap (or band gap) of the host is higher than that of the EM dopant, excitons will be effectively trapped or confined on the dopant molecules leading to improved EL efficiency. An example of such a dopant-based device... 

The processes of charge injection, transport, and recombination dictate the recombination efficiency h(/), which is the fraction of injected electrons that recombine to give an exciton. The recombination efficiency, which is a function of the device current, plays a primaty role in determining the amount of emitted light, therefore determining the OLED figurcs-of-meril. For example, the quantum efficiency /y(/) (fraction of injected electrons that results in the emission of a photon from the device) is, to a first approximation, given by ... 

Yersin H (2004) Triplet Emitters for OLED Applications. Mechanisms of Exciton Trapping and Control of Emission Properties. 241 1-6 Yeung LK,see Crooks RM (2001) 212 81-135... 

In electroluminescent applications, electrons and holes are injected from opposite electrodes into the conjugated polymers to form excitons. Due to the spin symmetry, only the antisymmetric excitons known as singlets could induce fluorescent emission. The spin-symmetric excitons known as triplets could not decay radiatively to the ground state in most organic molecules [65], Spin statistics predicts that the maximum internal quantum efficiency for EL cannot exceed 25% of the PL efficiency, since the ratio of triplets to singlets is 3 1. This was confirmed by the performance data obtained from OLEDs made with fluorescent organic... 

Exciton decay When an exciton decays radiatively a photon is emitted. When the excitons form in fluorescent materials radiative decay is limited to singlet excitons and emission occurs close to the recombination region [7] of the OLED due to the relatively short lifetime of the excited state (of the order of 10 ns). For phosphorescent materials, emission can occur from triplet excitons. Due to the longer excited state lifetime (of the order of hundreds of nanoseconds), triplet excitons can diffuse further before decaying. 

Figure 7.6 shows typcial current density-voltage-luminance (J-V-L) and emission characteristics of an OLED device. OLEDs have a similar electrical characteristic to that of a rectifying diode. In forward bias, the device starts with a small current at low voltages. In this region, charge carriers are injected into the device but little exciton formation, hence light... 

Excited-state relaxation, in photochemical technology, 19 109-111 Excitons. See also Frenkel exciton in double heterostructure OLEDs, 22 217... 

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