Recovering cavity effects in corrugated organic light emitting diodes

Abstract

Cavity effects play an important role in determining the out-coupling efficiency of an OLED. By fabricating OLEDs on corrugated substrates, the waveguide and SPP modes can be extracted by diffraction. However, corrugation does not always lead to an enhancement in out-coupling efficiency due to the reduction of the electrode reflectance and hence the cavity effects. Based on the results of our rigorous couple-wave analysis (RCWA) simulation, we found that the cavity effects can be partially recovered using a low index Teflon layer inserted between the ITO anode and the substrate due to the enhancement of the reflectance of the corrugated electrodes. To verify the simulation results, we fabricated corrugated OLEDs having a low-index Teflon interlayer with an EQE of 36%, which is 29% higher than an optimized planar OLED. By experimentally measuring the OLED air mode dispersion, we confirm the cavity emission of a corrugated OLED is enhanced by the low index layer.