Reduced threshold of optically pumped amplified spontaneous emission and narrow line-width electroluminescence at cutoff wavelength from bilayer organic waveguide devices

We present a detailed study of the optically and electrically pumped emission in the BSB-Cz/PVK bilayer waveguide devices. By optical pumping we demonstrate that PVK as a spacer between fluorescent BSB-Cz and ITO electrode allows the significant reduction of the threshold for amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) of BSB-Cz. The simulation provides a better understanding of how the PVK thickness affects the waveguide mode field distribution and hence the ASE threshold of BSB-Cz. On the other hand, the BSB-Cz/PVK bilayer OLED exhibits the external quantum efficiency of >1% and anisotropic electroluminescence with spectrally narrowed edge emission at the cutoff wavelength controlled by the BSB-Cz thickness. When tuning the cutoff wavelength to match the peak gain of BSB-Cz, we demonstrate an intense, particularly narrow edge emission (similar to 5 nm) without obvious degradation of efficiency at a high current density of 1000 mA/cm(2), suggesting a reliable device performance for high-power applications and further exploration of electrically-pumped ASE. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America