Electrical and optical properties of electro chemical luminescence device with quasi solid electrolyte and ZnO/TiO2 electrode

Abstract

In this work, a quasi-solid electrolyte process that can be simply manufactured for an electrochemical luminescence (ECL) device with a ZnO/TiO2 electrode was proposed, and the electro-optical characteristics of the fabricated ECL cells were investigated. The electrolyte was prepared by adding poly (vinylidene fluoride-co-hexa-fluoropropylen) with the Ru(bpy)3(PF6)2 as a luminescence material in 1:4 weigh ratio in 1 g of Acetonitrile (ACN). The ZnO/TiO2 films as an electrode were prepared by RF sputtering system. The ZnO and TiO2 targets were set up in co-sputtered system and FTO glass size 2 × 2 cm2 was used as a substrate. Argon gas flow rating as the working gas was fixed at 30 sccm. First, the ZnO layer is deposited on the FTO substrate at 100 W of RF power and at 10 mTorr of Argon gas pressure. TiO2 layer is deposited on the ZnO layer while increasing the sputtering time by 10 min. The morphological and optical properties of the thin films as electrode were confirmed using scanning electron microscope (SEM, Hitachi Su70), X-ray diffraction (XRD, Rigaku D/max 2100H) and UV–vis spectrometer (DH-2000-BAL Ocean Optics). The performance of proposed ECL devices were evaluated by varying operation voltage of 0.5 V from 2 V to 5 V. As the result, we can achieve high performance of device having a wide operating voltage margin and improved luminance intensity.