Increasing the PLED Luminescence Efficiency by Exploiting the Surface Plasmon Resonance Effect

Thermal evaporation was used to fabricate 60-nm Au particles sandwiched between a self-made nitrogen-doped aluminum zinc oxide film and a glass substrate to form novel window materials for use in polymer light emitting diodes (PLEDs). The PLEDs considered herein are single-layer devices based on a poly [2-methoxy,5-(2'-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] emissive layer. In addition to its low cost, this novel fabrication method can effectively prevent interruption or degradation of the charge transport properties of the active layer to meet the high performance requirements of PLEDs. The luminance-voltage measurements show that the absorption band of the Au nanoparticles due to the surface plasmon resonance effect increased the general luminescence efficiency of the PLED device by 60%. (C) 2010 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3527981] All rights reserved.