Efficiency enhancement of organic light-emitting devices due to the localized surface plasmonic resonant effect of Au nanoparticles embedded in ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract

Organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) were fabricated utilizing Au-ZnO nanocomposites (NCs) with various Au nanoparticles (NPs) concentrations synthesized by using a sol-gel process to enhance their current efficiency, and these devices were compared with OLEDs fabricated utilizing ZnO NPs only. The electroluminescence intensity of the OLEDs with Au-ZnO NCs at a wavelength of 535 nm was significantly larger than that of the OLEDs with ZnO NPs by a factor of 1.89. The current efficiency of the OLEDs with 10 wt. % Au-ZnO NCs at 1000 cd/m2 was higher by 16.7 cd/A than that of the OLEDs with ZnO NPs. This increase in the current efficiency of the OLEDs with Au-ZnO NCs was attributed to an enhancement of the out-coupling efficiency due to the existence of the localized surface plasmonic resonance effect induced by the Au NPs that were embedded in the Au-ZnO NCs.