White organic light-emitting devices with high color purity and stability

Abstract

A white organic light-emitting device (WOLED) with dual-emitting layers was presented, in which the blue fluorescent dye 2,5,8,11-terta-tertbutylperylene (TBPe) was doped in 2-methyl-9, 10-di(2-naphthyl)-anthracene (MADN) as a blue-emitting layer, while 5,6,11,12-tetraphenylnaphthacene (rubrene, Rb) was doped in the above-mentioned materials as a yellow-emitting layer. The fabricated monochromatic devices using the blue- and yellow-emitting layer have demonstrated that the direct charge trapping mechanism is the dominant emission mechanism in the yellow OLED. Studies on the WOLEDs with dual-emitting layers have shown that the performances of these devices are strongly susceptible to the thickness of the emitting layer and the stack order of two emitting layers. Structure of ITO(160 nm)/NPB(30 nm)/MADN: 5 wt%TBPe: 3 wt%Rb(10 nm)/MADN: 5 wt%TBPe(20 nm)/BCP (10 nm)/Alq3(20 nm)/Al(100 nm) was determined to be the most favorable WOLED. The maximum luminance of 16 000 cd cm−2 at the applied voltage of 13.4 V and Commission International de 1′Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.3263, 0.3437) which is closer to the standard white light (CIE (0.33, 0.33)) than the most recent reported WOLEDs were obtained. Moreover, there is just slight variation of CIE coordinates (ΔCIEx, y = 0.0171, 0.0167; corresponding Δu′v′ = 0.0119) when the current density increases from 10 to 100 mA cm−2. It reveals that the emissive dopant Rb acts as charge traps to improve electron–hole balance, provides sites for electron–hole recombination and thus makes carriers distribute more evenly in the dual-emitting layers which broaden the recombination zone and improve the stability of the CIE coordinates.