Stability OLEDs

The characteristics of ITO described in the previous paragraph make it a useful material for use as the anode in an OLED. At the same time, they arc the cause of many difficulties which have been observed in the reproducibility and stability of OLED devices. We shall return to this topic in more detail later, but suffice it... 

Indicator lights, fixed pattern, and segmented displays are applications which have been suggested for OLED deployment. Manufacturers of automobile components have shown interest in OLED indicators for the dashboard, where the primary considerations are those of cost, form factor, brightness, and stability over a wide range of ambient conditions. Power consumption is not particularly critical. The possibility of molding a thin light into a curved dashboard is attractive. 

The performance of OLED devices employing CuPc as a HIL is unstable due to thermally induced HTM crystallization on the CuPc surface [27]. One approach to improve the hole injection and enhance the device stability is to overcoat the CuPc or else to directly deposit... 

Due to the relatively high mobility of holes compared with the mobility of electrons in organic materials, holes are often the major charge carriers in OLED devices. To better balance holes and electrons, one approach is to use low WF metals, such as Ca or Ba, protected by a stable metal, such as Al or Ag, overcoated to increase the electron injection efficiency. The problem with such an approach is that the long-term stability of the device is poor due to its tendency to create detrimental quenching sites at areas near the EML-cathode interface. Another approach is to lower the electron injection barrier by introducing a cathode interfacial material (CIM) layer between the cathode material and the organic layer. The optimized thickness of the CIM layer is usually about 0.3-1.0 nm. The function of the CIM is to lower... 

The most commonly used HTL materials are triarylamine compounds. These compounds were developed as HTMs for photoconductive applications such as xerography [69]. They naturally have been selected as HTMs for OLED applications largely because of their ready availability and their good electrochemical and thermal stabilities. The hole mobilities of these materials are also adequate for OLED applications. In addition, high purity, so as to ensure low hole-trap contamination, is believed necessary for long-lived OLED performance and such materials may often be train sublimed to very high purity. 

Fujikawa et al. studied a series of triphenylamine (TPA, 14) oligomers from the dimer TPD up to the related pentamer and used them as HTMs [71]. Their results indicated that the thermal stability of the OLEDs was dramatically improved using a HTM TPTE (15) (Scheme 3.9), a tetramer of TPA. The resulting OLED devices show uniform light emission in continuous operation up to 140°C without breakdown [72],... 

A new branched carbazole derivative with phenyl ethylene moieties attached, l,3,5-tris(2-(9-ethylcarbazyl-3)ethylene)benzene (TECEB, 41) (Scheme 3.15), was prepared as a HTM for OLEDs [86], TECEB has a HOMO energy level of —5.2 eV and hole-drift mobility of 1(T 4 cm2/(V s), comparable to NPD. The device performance (maximum luminance of about 10,000 cd/m2 and current efficiency of 3.27 cd/A) in a standard HTL/tris-(8-hydroxyquino-line) aluminum double-layer device is also comparable to NPD, but TECEB has a higher Tg (130°C) and its ease of synthesis is superior to NPD. Distyryl units linked to a TPD derivative, A, A"-bis(4-(2,2-diphenylethenyl)-phenyl)-jY,jV -di(p-tolyl)-bendidine (DPS, 42) (Scheme 3.15), reported by Yamashita and coworkers, showed good hole transport properties and improved thermal stability compared with the parent TPD [87]. 

Triazines are well-known compounds with high thermal stability and higher EA than 1,3,4-oxadiazoles (PBD) and 1,2,4-triazoles (TAZ, 92). Schmidt et al. studied a series of dimeric 1,3,5-triazine ethers for application as ETMs for OLEDs [150], However, despite their high EA, the efficiency of the OLEDs improved only modestly. One possible explanation is due to their rather poor electron mobilities. 

Tanaka et al. reported a series of oxadiazole metal chelate materials (97 99) (Scheme 3.31). However, these complexes suffer stability issues due to the intrinsic instability of the excited state of the molecules. Therefore the lifetimes of OLEDs fabricated using these compounds are fairly short [153,154]. 

Besides their use as ETMs, some siloles are also being explored as emissive materials or host materials for OLEDs [163], However, it was also reported that the stability of devices... 

Ma et al. at PPG recently applied for patents on a series of iridium star-like bidentate complexes [300], Examples of two such green dopants are shown in Scheme 3.82 (254, 255). OLEDs fabricated using the dopants showed green emission with higher EQE and enhanced stability compared with a similar Ir(ppy)3-based device. 

Blue fluorescent emitters based on fused polyaromatic ring systems have long been known and systematic work has steadily improved the efficiencies and colors, while pushing the limits of stability in an operational device. A sky blue based on styrylamine doped 2-methyl-9,10-di(2-naphthyl)anthracene OLED was reported to provide the highest efficiency device (Scheme 3.99) [365],... 

T.K. Hatwar, J.R. Vargas, and V.V. Jarikov, Stabilized white-light-emitting OLED devices employing a stabilizing substituted perylene material, U.S. Patent 2,005,089,714, pp. 21 (2005). 

The primary effect of the anode modification on the enhancement in luminous efficiency and the increased stability of OLEDs can be attributed to an improved hole-electron current balance. By choosing an interlayer with a suitable thickness of a few nanometers, anode modification enables engineering of the interface electronic properties. The above results indicate that conventional dual-layer OLEDs of ITO/NPB/Alq3/cathode have an inherent weakness of instability that can be improved by the insertion of an ultrathin interlayer between ITO and HTL. The improvements are attributed to an improved ITO-HTL interfacial quality and a more balanced hole electron current that enhances the OLED performance. 

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