Enhanced light emission efficiency and current stability by morphology control and thermal annealing of organic light emitting diode devices

The electro-optical behaviour of organic light emitting diode devices (OLEDs) is greatly influenced by the morphology of the films. A major parameter is due to the important role that the morphology of the active organic thin films plays in the phenomena that lead to light emission. For vacuum-grown OLEDs, the morphology of the specific thin films can be varied by modification of the deposition conditions. We have assessed the method (ultrahigh-vacuum organic molecular beam deposition) and conditions ( variation of the deposition rate) for electro-emission (EL) optimization in a standard alpha-NPB (N, N'-bis-(1-naphthyl)-N, N' diphenyl-1,1' biphenyl-4-4' diamine)/Alq3 (tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminium)vacuum-grown OLED device. The best EL performances have been obtained for OLEDs made in ultrahigh vacuum with the Alq3 layer deposited with a differential deposition rate ranging from 1.0 -> 0.3 A s(-1). The results are consistent with a model of different Alq3 morphologies, allowing efficient charge injection at the metal/organic interface, and of the minimization of grain boundaries at the electron-hole recombination interface, allowing efficient radiative excitonic decay. At the same time, with the objective of controlling and stabilizing the morphology changes and stabilizing the charge transport over a long OLED operating time, we have studied the effect of thermal annealing processing in the standard current behaviour of OLEDs. The large current fluctuations typically observed for standard vacuum-grown OLEDs have been smeared out and kept constant over a long operating time by the given thermal annealing conditions. The results are interpreted in terms of the stabilization of intrinsic polymorphism of the organic film's structure induced by thermal energy and leading the morphology to a lowest-energetic configuration.