Enhancing Charge Injection and Device Integrity in Organic LEDs

75905S Solid state lighting based on organic light emitting diodes (OLED) offers significant gains in power efficiency, color quality, and lifetime, with less cost and environmental impact than traditional incandescent and fluorescent lights. However, currently available OLED devices do not meet the power efficiency and lifetime requirements for general lighting. Among several limiting factors, two very important ones are: (1) non-efficient and non-balanced charge injection and (2) poor device structural stability. This project will develop innovative, low cost, OLED anode surface modification technology, which will increase device energy efficiency by 5 to 10 times, and simultaneously promote significant thermal stability and long life for the device. In Phase I, anode surface modification agents TPD-(SiCl3)2 and TPD-[Si(OCH3)3]2 were successfully synthesized with high yield and purity. Improvements of approximately 200% in luminance and 50% in energy efficiency were achieved with these materials compared to industry standard, PEDOT-PSS. In Phase II, the TPD-(SiCl3)2 and TPD-[Si(OCH3)3]2 synthesis processes will be optimized for OLED polymers and scaled up cost-effectively to 6 inch wafers. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The novel substrates should improve OLED performance and help it realize its potential applications: solid state lighting, high brightness image displays, sign indicators, automobile displays, and wearable electronics.