Recombination OLEDs

Studies of double carrier injection and transport in insulators and semiconductors (the so called bipolar current problem) date all the way back to the 1950s. A solution that relates to the operation of OLEDs was provided recently by Scott et al. [142], who extended the work of Parmenter and Ruppel [143] to include Lange-vin recombination. In order to obtain an analytic solution, diffusion was ignored and the electron and hole mobilities were taken to be electric field-independent. The current-voltage relation was derived and expressed in terms of two independent boundary conditions, the relative electron contributions to the current at the anode, jJfVj, and at the cathode, JKplJ. 

Another issue that can be clarified with the aid of numerical simulations is that of the recombination profile. Mailiaras and Scott [145] have found that recombination takes place closer to the contact that injects the less mobile carrier, regardless of the injection characteristics. In Figure 13-12, the calculated recombination profiles arc shown for an OLED with an ohmic anode and an injection-limited cathode. When the two carriers have equal mobilities, despite the fact that the hole density is substantially larger than the electron density, electrons make it all the way to the anode and the recombination profile is uniform throughout the sample. 

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 ... 

Figure 13-11. (a) A diagram showing ihc spatial distribution of lire relative hole and electron currents in an OLED. The recombination efficiency h is equal to the fraction of the electron (hole) current that docs not make it to the anode (cathode) (b) cll icicncy-currcni balance diagram for OLEDs. Sec text for details. 

Venegas, A., Goldstein, J.C., Beauregard, K, Oles, A., Abdulhayoglu, N. and Fuhrman, J.A. (1996) Expression of recombinant microfilarial chitinase and analysis of domain function. Molecular and, Biochemical Parasitology 78, 149-159. 

The enhancement in luminous efficiency achieved by inserting an ultrathin interlayer between the ITO and NPB is mainly due to the reduction of hole injection from ITO to NPB in OLEDs. For a simple approximation, luminous efficiency (rj) can be related directly to a ratio of the recombination current (/r) to the total current density of OLEDs (/tot). If one denotes the current contributions from holes and electrons in OLEDs as. /h and /e, respectively, then the sum of hole and electron currents, /tot. /h + /e, and tj can be expressed as... 

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 3.26. Structure of an OLED. S = substrate (glass), ANO = anode (e.g., ITO — indium tin oxide), HIL = hole injection layer (e.g., Cu phthalocyanine), HTL = hole transport layer, EML = emission layer, ETL = electron transport layer, EIL = electron injection layer (e.g., LiF), KAT = cathode (e.g., Ag Mg, Al). The light that is generated by the recombination of holes and electrons is coupled out via the transparent anode.

Two recombinant allergens from olive pollen (Ole e 3 and Ole e 8) were produced in Arabidopsis and their relative biological activities assessed to be positive via calcium-binding assays. The immunological behavior of these recombinant allergens was equivalent to natural allergens, as demonstrated by their ability to bind to allergen-specific rabbit IgG antiserum and IgE from sensitized patients (Ledesma et al., 2006). 

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