Organic electroluminescent diodes as a light source for polymeric waveguides — toward organic integrated optical devices

Abstract

We fabricated organic electroluminescent diodes (OELD) on a polymeric optical waveguide for use as an optical interconnect in data communication systems. We fabricated the OELDs on an ITO sputtered polymeric waveguide with a 45° mirror by vacuum deposition. These OELDs, with an emission peak center at 520 nm, consist of a N, N′-diphenyl- N, N′-(3-methylphenyl)-1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamine (TPD) as a hole transporting layer and 8-hydroxyquinolie aluminum (Alq 3) as an emissive layer. We estimated the propagation losses of the waveguide to be 1.35 dB/cm at 520 nm. The optical pulses of faster than 5 Mb/s have been generated from the OELD. We discuss the characteristics of the OLED as regards its use as a light source for polymeric waveguides.