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Mask Free OLED Fabrication Process for Non-Tunable and Tunable White OLED Panels
In this program we demonstrated a method for mask free fabrication of OLEDs. Conventional OLEDs use at least 2 shadowmasks during the fabrication process to define the deposition pattern for the organic layers and for the cathode layer. Although effective, the use of masks requires mask handling and mask change equipment which increases the cost of the OLED deposition system. New sets of masks are required for every new product design, and the mask sets require frequent cleaning as organic material builds up on the masks over time and can be a source of particle defects resulting in yield loss. The method investigated in this program uses laser removal of organic material to pattern the organic layers and define a moisture impermeable seal region. This method is digital and can be applied to any new panel design, avoiding the costs of new masks sets and associated yield loss. In addition, we developed a platform technology for producing white color tunable or dim-to-warm white OLEDs and demonstrated patterning of tunable white OLEDs using the low-cost mask free fabrication process.
Permanent polarization and charge distribution in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs): Insights from near-infrared charge-modulation spectroscopy of an operating OLED
Vapor-deposited Alq{sub 3} layers typically possess a strong permanent electrical polarization, whereas NPB layers do not. (Alq{sub 3} is tris(8-quinolinolato)aluminum(III); NPB is 4,4′-bis[N-(1-naphthyl)-N-phenylamino]biphenyl.) The cause is a net orientation of the Alq{sub 3} molecules with their large dipole moments. Here we report on consequences for an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) with an NPB hole-transport layer and Alq{sub 3} electron-transport layer. The discontinuous polarization at the NPB|Alq{sub 3} interface has the same effect as a sheet of immobile negative charge there. It is more than compensated by a large concentration of injected holes (NPB{sup +}) when the OLED is running. We discuss the implications and consequences for the quantum efficiency and the drive voltage of this OLED and others. We also speculate on possible consequences of permanent polarization in organic photovoltaic devices. The concentration of NPB{sup +} was measured by charge-modulation spectroscopy (CMS) in the near infrared, where the NPB{sup +} has a strong absorption band, supplemented by differential-capacitance and current-voltage measurements. Unlike CMS in the visible, this method avoids complications from modulation of the electroluminescence and electroabsorption.
Highly Efficient Blue OLEDs Based on Metal‐Assisted Delayed Fluorescence Pd(II) Complexes
Abstract A series of metal‐assisted delayed fluorescence (MADF) palladium(II) complexes, PdN1N, PdN1N‐dm, and PdN6N, are studied. Their 77 K photoluminescence emission spectra show a narrow primary emission peak at 464, 466, and 470 nm, respectively, with small vibronic peaks characteristic of many phosphorescent emitters. At room temperature (300 K), the dominant emission peaks for PdN1N, PdN1N‐dm, and PdN6N are slightly redshifted to 472, 470, and 476 nm, respectively. In the meantime, a broad sideband is also shown between 410 and 450 nm due to the MADF process. A blue device employing PdN1N‐dm demonstrates an electroluminescence emission peak at 476 nm and the maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 25.1%. The high maximum EQE of the blue organic light‐emitting diode (OLED) device indicates that both the phosphorescence and the delayed fluorescence are very efficient. In addition, a stable OLED device of PdN1N‐dm gives a maximum EQE of 9.8% and the estimated operational lifetime LT 70 of 350 h at the practical luminance of 100 cd m −2 .
Efficient Blue Phosphorescent OLEDs with Improved Stability and Color Purity through Judicious Triplet Exciton Management
Abstract Highly efficient and stable blue phosphorescent organic light‐emitting diodes are achieved by employing a step‐wise graded doping of platinum(II) 9‐(pyridin‐2‐yl)‐2‐(9‐(pyridin‐2‐yl)‐9 H ‐carbazol‐2‐yloxy)‐9 H ‐carbazole (PtNON) in a device setting. A device employing PtNON demonstrates a high peak external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 17.4% with an estimated LT 70 lifetime of over 1330 h at a brightness of 1000 cd m −2 . PtNON is then investigated as a “triplet sensitizer” in an alternating donor–acceptor doped emissive layer to further improve the device emission color purity by carefully managing an efficient Förster resonant energy transfer from PtNON to 2,5,8,11‐tetra‐ tert ‐butylperylene as a selected acceptor material. Thus, such OLED devices demonstrate an EQE of 16.9% with color coordinates of (0.16, 0.25) and an estimated luminance (LT 70 ) lifetime of 628 h at a high brightness of 1000 cd m −2 .
OLED Display Driver (oled) v1.0
This is a simple C-language driver for an OLED display board which includes a few fonts and provides a simple API to the application layer.
Design of low surface roughness-low residual stress-high optoelectronic merit a-IZO thin films for flexible OLEDs
The development of efficient and reliable large-area flexible optoelectronic devices demands low surface roughness-low residual stress-high optoelectronic merit transparent conducting oxide (TCO) thin films. Here, we correlate surface roughness-residual stress-optoelectronic properties of sputtered amorphous indium zinc oxide (a-IZO) thin films using a statistical design of experiment (DOE) approach and find a common growth space to achieve a smooth surface in a stress-free and high optoelectronic merit a-IZO thin film. The sputtering power, growth pressure, oxygen partial pressure, and RF/(RF+DC) are varied in a two-level system with a full factorial design, and results are used to deconvolve the complex growth space, identifying significant control growth parameters and their possible interactions. The surface roughness of a-IZO thin film varies over 0.19 nm to 3.97 nm, which is not in line with the general assumption of low surface roughness in a-IZO thin films. The initial regression model and analysis of variance reveal no single optimum growth sub-space to achieve low surface roughness (≤0.5 nm), low residual stress (−1 to 0 GPa), and industrially acceptable electrical conductivity (>1000 S/cm) for a-IZO thin films. The extrapolation of growth parameters in light of the current results and previous knowledge leads to a new sub-space, resulting in a low residual stress of −0.52±0.04 GPa, a low surface roughness of 0.55±0.03 nm, and moderate electrical conductivity of 1962±3.84 S/cm in a-IZO thin films. These results demonstrate the utility of the DOE approach to multi-parameter optimization, which provides an important tool for the development of flexible TCOs for the next-generation flexible organic light emitting diodes applications.
Improved out-coupling efficiency from a green microcavity OLED with a narrow band emission source
Not provided.
Efficient white OLEDs employing red, green, and blue tetradentate platinum phosphorescent emitters
Not provided.
Enhanced light out-coupling of organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) using novel plastic substrates and improved performance of OLED-based photoluminescence sensing platform
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Enhanced Light Outcoupling from OLEDs Fabricated on Novel Low-Cost Patterned Plastic Substrates of Varying Periodicity
OLEDs continue to make strides in display applications, but their commercial utilization in solid-state lighting (SSL) is lagging. An ongoing challenge, in particular for manufacturing, is the need for enhanced efficiency and hence the necessity to increase in an inexpensive approach the extraction of the light generated inside the OLED into the forward (viewing) hemisphere. In conventional OLEDs fabricated on a transparent flat anode coated on glass, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) is only ~20%. About 50% of the light is lost to internal waveguiding in the high refractive index (RI) organic + ITO anode layers and to surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) at the organic/metal cathode interface. Another ~30% of the light is externally waveguided in the substrate to its edges. While extraction of the externally waveguided light is commonly addressed by adding a microlens array (MLA) or a scattering layer at the substrate’s air-side, light outcoupling increases by only ~1.6-1.7x (vs up to 2.5x in improving from ~20% to ~50%). The use of a hemispherical lens or an index matching fluid (IMF) at the substrate/photodetector (PD) interface increases the outcoupling by at least 2x; these approaches however, are not viable industrially, and even a MLA is sometimes undesirable due to its non-planar, scattering structure. In multi-stack tandem OLEDs, where the metal cathode is far from the emitting zone(s), the impact of photons loss to SPPs decreases. Our project addressed the ~50% loss to the internally waveguided light and SPPs. We evaluated OLEDs fabricated on patterned or planarized plastic substrates manufactured in a cost-effective approach compatible with a roll-to-roll (R2R) process. The OLEDs were either (i) patterned to various degrees depending on the pitch a and height or depth h of the pattern features or (ii) planar, with a pattern buried under a flat high RI planarization layer. We demonstrated that the outcoupling from green patterned OLEDs reaches ~50% by mitigating plasmon–related loss and internal waveguiding, even without the addition of a MLA, a hemispherical lens, or IMF. Simulations conducted in parallel with the experimental effort demonstrated how diffraction by conformally corrugated OLEDs increases the outcoupling to >60%. Structures with varying pitch values were also simulated indicating that combining domains of varying pitch could increase outcoupling to 55-60%. Experimentally, we additionally assessed the role a and h in determining not only the OLED efficiencies, but also their structural properties, i.e., the uniformity and conformality throughout the OLED stack. As planar OLEDs are preferred over corrugated devices, we studied different patterns in plastic substrates that were planarized by a high RI formulation. Planar green OLEDs on such structures showed enhanced efficiencies with EQEs larger than 60% with the addition of an IMF (to extract the substrate mode) at the substrate/Si PD interface. White OLEDs showed EQEs of 45.5%. Plastic substrates are currently less attractive than glass substrates due to drawbacks such as permeability to water vapor and oxygen, and in some cases thermal instability. Plastic substrates however, are flexible and easy to handle unlike thin flexible glass, and once transparent thin barrier films are available, they will become more attractive; they are already of interest in medical applications. Importantly, as it is easy to generate various patterns in different plastic materials, they provide excellent means for assessing and optimizing enhancing extracting structures. Such structures can also be transferred to glass substrates with some process modifications. The technical effectiveness and economic feasibility of the project lie in the patterning of the extracting plastic substrates in an approach that is scalable to R2R manufacturing. R2R processes are of drastically lower-cost than batch or single-unit fabrication. The patterned plastic can be a part of an integrated substrate either plastic or glass, which includes also a MLA or a planar layer with embedded scattering particles, as well as a conductive metal mesh/electrode design. SSL is environmentally-friendly and as OLED SSL becomes more efficient it will reduce electricity consumption, and hence lighting cost, as well as produce less expensive attractive lighting fixtures. Our university-industry collaboration is hence of major benefit to the public as it demonstrates the feasibility of manufacturing optimized extracting substrates for highly efficient OLEDs for SSL in a future R2R process, which would drastically reduce the manufacturing cost and increase production in the USA. Moreover, newly developed methods by our team allow low-cost roll manufactured substrates to be transferred to flexible or rigid glass substrates, which solves the plastic substrate barrier issues, and when combined with device encapsulation will increase the OLEDs’ environmental stability.
Roll-to-Roll Integrated Substrates for OLED Lighting (Final Report)
OLED lighting has immense potential as aesthetically pleasing, energy-efficient general illumination. Unlike other light sources, such as incandescents, fluorescents, and inorganic LEDs, OLEDs naturally emit over a large-area surface. They are glare free, do not need to be shaded, and are cool to the touch, requiring no heatsink. The best efficiencies and lifetimes reported are on par with or better than current forms of illumination. However, the cost for OLED lighting remains high – so much so that these products are not market competitive and there is very low consumer demand. We believe that flexible, plastic-based devices will highlight the advantages of aesthetically-pleasing OLED lighting systems while paving the way for lowering both materials and manufacturing costs. These flexible devices require new development in substrate and support technology, which was the focus of the work reported here. Sinovia Technologies, as part of a collaborative team, has developed integrated plastic substrates to serve as supports for flexible OLED lighting. These substrates include a barrier to protect the OLED from moisture and oxygen-related degradation, a smooth, highly conductive transparent anode to define the OLED area, and a light scattering layer to improve emission efficiency. To ensure low cost, the anode pattern must be defined using high throughput, continuous processing, and any pattern shape should be possible. No current patterning technique meets all of these requirements. This SBIR work demonstrated the use of flexographic printing as an effective method of patterning for integrated substrates. Flexography is a letterpress process commonly used for many types of everyday items including boxes, retail bags, milk cartons, food packaging, disposable cups, adhesive tapes, envelopes, wallpaper, and newspaper. The printing process can go as fast as 600 meters per minute with feature resolution around 10 microns, showing promise for low-cost with high throughput. In this case, Sinovia has successfully used this technique to print transparent anode patterns roll-to-roll as part of our integrated substrate for OLED lighting. We have characterized the printed films and tailored the edges of the printed areas for OLED compatibility. We followed this by making white OLEDs using these anodes. To ensure that our anodes were compatible with different OLED stack structures, we fabricated solution-processed polymer white OLEDs, as well as collaborated with OLEDWorks to fabricate evaporated small-molecule devices. Comparing to results from our previous studies, we find that the flexography process does not have any detrimental effects to our overall substrate. We were able to show that our flexographically printed integrated substrate improves OLED efficiency by 24 – 35%, similar to previous results demonstrated using batch-patterning techniques. The success of this work represents two substantial opportunities for OLED lighting manufacturers. The first to first facilitate flexible lighting panels at scale, and the second to lower costs for by enabling roll-to-roll manufacture of the entire device stack. When realized, both of these will help OLED to become market competitive with other forms of general illumination.
Patterned OLEDs: effect of substrate corrugation pitch and height
Abstract An ongoing OLED challenge is cost-effective enhancement of light extraction, i.e., increasing the external quantum efficiency ( EQE ∼20% in conventional devices). OLEDs on corrugated substrates often show enhanced EQE s providing insight into light emission processes. In particular, patterned plastic substrates directly imprinted easily at room temperature and amenable to low-cost R2R production are ideal for studying/optimizing various structures, further elucidating the extraction process. We show new semi-quantitative data of the effect of the pitch ( a ) and height/depth ( h ) of plastic substrate patterns on the OLEDs’ stack and EQE , focusing on new designs, interestingly, some showing surprisingly enhanced EQE s that were neither reported nor discussed before. These includ e : ( i ) shallow ( h < 200 nm) convex polycarbonate with a ∼ 750 versus ∼400 nm, where the h gradually decreases as the OLED stack is built and ( ii ) concave PET/CAB with large a (∼2.8 and ∼7.8 μ m), where the EQE enhancement of conformal OLEDs may be due largely to scattering. EQE s of green, blue, and white phosphorescent OLEDs were measured. OLEDs on substrates with narrow a ∼ 400 nm and low h < 200 nm s h owed no enhancement, resembling flat devices. In contrast, OLEDs on substrates with comparable or smaller h , but larger a ∼ 750 nm show signific a nt EQE enhancement despite h reduction across the stack. Green OLEDs with a ∼ 750 nm and h ∼ 160 to ∼180 nm, showed EQE s ∼30%, reaching ∼58% with substrate mode extraction. Surprisingly, fully conformal OLEDs on a PET/CAB substrate with a ∼ 7.8 μ m showed blue a nd white EQE s reaching ∼33%, without substrate mode extraction. The enhancing patterns increase the OLEDs’ EQE by reducing surface plasmon excitation and internal waveguiding. The experimental results for OLEDs on substrates with a < 2 μ m are supported by scattering matrix simulations that assume conformal stacks, incorporating diffraction for internal losses reduction. EQE enhancement not predicted by simulations may be due additionally to scattering mostly for substrates with a signific a ntly larger than the emitting wavelength.
OLED Fundamentals: Materials, Devices, and Processing of Organic Light-Emitting Diodes
What is an organic light emitting diode (OLED)? Why should we care? What are they made of? How are they made? What are the challenges in seeing these devices enter the marketplace in various applications? These are the questions we hope to answer in this book, at a level suitable for knowledgeable non-experts, graduate students and scientists and engineers working in the field who want to understand the broader context of their work. At the most basic level, an OLED is a promising new technology composed of some organic material sandwiched between two electrodes. When current is passed through the device, light is emitted. The stack of layers can be very thin and has many variations, including flexible and/or transparent. The organic material can be polymeric or composed small molecules, and may include inorganic components. The electrodes may consist of metals, metal oxides, carbon nanomaterials, or other species, though of course for light to be emitted, one electrode must be transparent. OLEDs may be fabricated on glass, metal foils, or polymer sheets (though polymeric substrates must be modified to protect the organic material from moisture or oxygen). In any event, the organic material must be protected from moisture during storage and operation. A control circuit, the exact nature of which depends on the application, drives the OLED. Nevertheless, the control circuit should have very stable current control to generate uniform light emission. OLEDs can be designed to emit a single color of light, white light, or even tunable colors. The devices can be switched on and off very rapidly, which makes them suitable for displays or for general lighting. Given the amazing complexity of the technical and design challenges for practical OLED applications, it is not surprising that applications are still somewhat limited. Although organic electroluminescence is more than 50 years old, the modern OLED field is really only about half that age – with the first high-efficiency OLED demonstrated in 1987. Thus, we expect to see exciting advances in the science, technology and commercialization in the coming years. We hope that this book helps to advance the field in some small way. Contributors to this monograph are experts from top academic institutions, industry and national laboratories who provide comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the rapidly evolving field of OLEDs. Furthermore, this monograph collects in one place, for the first time, key topics across the field of OLEDs, from fundamental chemistry and physics, to practical materials science and engineering topics, to aspects of design and manufacturing. The monograph synthesizes and puts into context information scattered throughout the literature for easy review in one book. The scope of the monograph reflects the necessity to focus on new technological challenges brought about by the transition to manufacturing. In the Section 1, all materials of construction of the OLED device are covered, from substrate to encapsulation. In Section 2, for the first time, additional challenges in devices and processing are addressed. This book is geared towards a broad audience, including materials scientists, device physicists, synthetic chemists and electrical engineers. Furthermore, this book makes a great introduction to scientists in industry and academia, as well as graduate students interested in applied aspects of photophysics and electrochemistry in organic thin films. This book is a comprehensive source for OLED R&D professionals from all backgrounds and institutions.
Integrated Plastic Substrates for OLED Lighting
OLED lighting has immense potential as aesthetically pleasing, energy-efficient general illumination. Unlike other light sources, such as incandescents, fluorescents, and inorganic LEDs, OLEDs naturally emit over a large-area surface. They are glare free, do not need to be shaded, and are cool to the touch, requiring no heatsink. The best efficiencies and lifetimes reported are on par with or better than current forms of illumination. However, the cost for OLED lighting remains high – so much so that these products are not market competitive and there is very low consumer demand. We believe that flexible, plastic-based devices will highlight the advantages of aesthetically-pleasing OLED lighting systems while paving the way for lowering both materials and manufacturing costs. These flexible devices require new development in substrate and support technology, which was the focus of the work reported here. The project team, led by Sinovia Technologies, has developed integrated plastic substrates to serve as supports for flexible OLED lighting. The substrates created in this project would enable large-area, flexible devices and are specified to perform three functions. They include a barrier to protect the OLED from moisture and oxygen-related degradation, a smooth, highly conductive transparent electrode to enable large-area device operation, and a light scattering layer to improve emission efficiency. Through the course of this project, integrated substrates were fabricated, characterized, evaluated for manufacturing feasibility and cost, and used in white OLED demonstrations to test their impact on flexible OLED lighting. Our integrated substrates meet or exceed the DOE specifications for barrier performance in water vapor and oxygen transport rates, as well as the transparency and conductivity of the anode film. We find that these integrated substrates can be manufactured in a completely roll-to-roll, high throughput process and have developed and demonstrated manufacturing methods that can produce thousands of feet of material without defects. We have evaluated the materials and manufacturing costs of these films at scale and find that they meet the current and future cost targets for bringing down the cost of OLED lighting while enabling future roll-to-roll manufacturing of the complete device. And finally, we have demonstrated that the inherent light-scattering properties of our films enhance white OLED emission efficiency from 20% to 50% depending on the metric. This work has shown that these substrates can be created, manufactured, and will perform as needed to enable flexible OLED lighting to enter the marketplace.
OLED Lighting Substrate and Encapsulation System for Breakthrough Cost Reductions
OLED lighting is predicted to contribute a significant part of the US energy savings that will result from the implementation of Solid-State Lighting (SSL). OLED lighting adoption is predicted to reach approximately 5% of the lighting market by 2020. The primary purpose of this study was to address a barrier in OLED lighting adoption, this being OLED production costs. This project enabled the elimination of the anode patterning steps, by physically insulating the cathode contact area from the blanket coated ITO anode. Furthermore, this technology eliminates the need to change shadow masks between the organic materials and the cathode, making the OLED deposition machines simpler, lower cost, and less prone to particle generation. Finally, the process developed here permits the creation of a perfectly hermetic seal thereby eliminating the cost of desiccant materials. In this project, we successfully developed an ultrasonic soldering process to create a perfectly hermetic metal-on-glass bond. This required the evaluation of many ultrasonic solder materials, soldering parameters, and solder hardware configurations. In addition, methods to evaluate the hermeticity of the solder seal were developed and successfully tested. Our work demonstrated the ability to make a hermetic solder seal between a device glass and a cover glass using a Cerasolzer 155 ultrasonic solder. The resulting process could be leveraged to almost any OLED configuration. As we did not have the opportunity to produce a significant quantity of OLED devices for environmental testing, hermeticity was verified by measuring helium leakage rates through the seal. A second facet of this project required the development of a patterned glass frit insulating barrier over surface of the anode. To accomplish this, the appropriate insulator formulation and geometry needed to be established. In addition, this insulator needed to be robust enough to hold up to the ultrasonic soldering process previously mentioned. Given the aggressive nature of the ultrasonic soldering process, it was a significant challenge to develop an insulator which would withstand the resulting solder cavitation. The frit material and firing process turned out to be quite expensive and time consuming which was a major contributor to the higher than anticipated cost of this technology. In the end, it was found that a Vanadium Phosphate glass frit provided the most reliable insulator over the ITO.
High Aspect Ratio OLEDs
Long-term reliability is especially challenging for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) used in solid-state lighting applications because OLED lifetime is inversely proportional to luminance, and most lighting applications demand high luminance. This project explored a new strategy to overcome this tradeoff by constructing OLEDs on a substrate with sub-mm, high aspect ratio surface texture. By creating more active OLED area per unit lighting panel area, the device current density required to generate a given panel luminance decreases. We validated this approach for both fluorescent and phosphorescent OLEDs, demonstrating good thickness uniformity on corrugated substrates with area enhancement factors up to 1.4x using a standard thermal evaporator. Relative to planar controls at the same panel current density, the high aspect ratio devices achieve a 2.7-fold increase in operating lifetime and up to a 40% increase in external light extraction efficiency. Experiments carried out on a pilot-line OLED manufacturing system demonstrated good coating uniformity, indicating that this approach has the potential to be implemented at scale and therefore offers a powerful pathway to improve the efficiency and lifetime of OLED lighting.