Phosphorescent hybrid organic-inorganic light emitting devices with solution-processed small molecule emissive layers

Abstract

We report efficient phosphorescent hybrid organic-inorganic light emitting devices using poly(ethylenimine) as electron-injection layer and interfacial modifier for metal oxides and solution-processed small molecule emissive layers. As a first step, the hole transport layers with various HOMO levels and the hole mobility values including TAPC, TCTA and mCP are evaluated. The results indicate that devices using a TAPC layer show the best luminance and power efficiencies. Subsequently, the optimum phosphor concentration is determined to be ca. 5%. Enlarged efficiency roll-off with increasing current density is observed in devices using the phosphor concentration above the optimum value. We also investigate the morphologies of films having different phosphor concentrations on the top of bare or PEIE-covered glass substrates, which is closely related to device performance. All the films have the RMS values of ca. 1 nm, indicating high-quality solution processed small molecule films. The blue, yellow and red devices show the maximum external quantum efficiencies of 17.3%, 10.7% and 7.3%, respectively. These efficiencies are 17.0%, 10.6% and 5.8% at 1000 cd·m-2, only showing a small roll-off, which can be attributed to alleviated triplet-triplet and triplet-polaron interactions in a broad carrier recombination zone due to using the mixed hole-transport and electron-transport materials as the co-hosts. In addition, these devices exhibit the respective Commission International Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.16, 0.36), (0.50, 0.49) and (0.66, 0.32), which almost traverse the whole visible light region. Furthermore, the hybrid two-colored white devices show a luminance efficiency of 31 cd·A-1, power efficiency of 14.8 lm·W-1 at 1000 cd·m-2 and the operating current-insensitive CIE coordinates of (0.32, 0.42). The efficiencies represent the significant improvement over the previously reported values, which can be attributed to high-quality small molecule films on PEIE, and in particular to the unique properties of small molecule host materials such as balanced carrier transport and high triplet energy. Further efforts including selection of high-mobility electron transport host material and phosphors with high luminescence quantum yield are made to increase the efficiency and reliability of hybrid organic-inorganic light emitting device.