Suppression of roll-off characteristics of electroluminescence at high current densities in organic light emitting diodes by introducing reduced carrier injection barriers

We experimentally investigated suppression of the roll-off characteristics of the electroluminescence efficiency at high current densities in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). To increase exciton density, we propose a nonheterostructure OLED that consists of a single emitting layer of 4,4'-bis[(N-carbazole)styryl]biphenyl (BSB-Cz) and layers locally with doped donors/acceptors on the cathode and anode sides. The OLED exhibited suppression of the roll-off characteristics at high current densities over 100 A/cm(2) with balanced bipolar injection and transport, resulting in the high exciton density of 10(24) cm(-3) s(-1). Furthermore, amplified spontaneous emission with a relatively low threshold of E(th)=24 mu J/cm(2) was obtained by optically pumping the single-layer device. However, to realize electrical excitation it was necessary to reduce the lasing threshold by two orders of magnitude or to inject a 100 times higher current density. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3488883]