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Journal of Luminescence 122123 (2007) 639641 www.elsevier.com/locate/jlumin

Study of the characteristics of new red dopants in OLED

Jing Xiaoa, Yishan Yaob, Zhenbo Denga,, Xuesong Wangb, Chun-jun Lianga
a

Institute of Optoelectronics Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China b Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of CAS, Beijing 100101, China Available online 20 March 2006

Abstract New red dopants TDCJTB and TDIN have been synthesized for using as red uorescent dye molecules in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Red-light-emitting devices have been fabricated with a structure of ITO/PVK: dopant/2, 9-dimethyl-4, 7 diphenyl-1, 10phenanthroline (BCP)/Alq3/LiF/Al. The Commission International dEclairage (CIE) coordinates and PL peaks of the devices are [0.61, 0.39], [0.62, 0.38] and 579, 597 nm, respectively. The maximum EL brightness of TDCJTB and TDIN reached 1311 cd/m2 (18 V) and 2497 cd/m2 (16 V), respectively. Compared with traditional DCM ([0.58, 0.41], 1032 cd/m2 (18 V)) the two devices have better CIE coordinates and brightness. When TBQ is doped in these materials, the EL efciency can both be improved at different level. Present research work shows that when TBQs concentration is 30%, the maximum EL efciency TDCJTB and TDIN is 2.57 and 2.54 cd/A at 40 mA/cm2, respectively. r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Oled; Red color; TDCJTB; TDIN; Efcient

1. Introduction Organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) have attracted much attention owing to their advantages of low-power consumption, high brightness, high contrast and potential applications to full color at panel displays [1]. But the red color OLED due to its low efciency, poor color purity, remains to be the weakest part in realizing the full potential of full color OLED. One of the key enablers in the development of OLED technology can be attributed to the discovery of the guesthost doped emitter system [2]. By dispersing 5% of rubrene as a red emitting assist dopant with 2% DCJTB in Alq3, Hamada and coworkers at Sanyo [3] were able to achieve a luminance efciency of 2.1 cd/A with CIEx,y [0.64, 0.35]. Subsequently, the Sanyo/Kodak team discovered [4] that by adding 6% of NPB as holetrapping dopant to the above emitting system, its efciency could be further improved to 2.8 cd/A at 20 mA/cm2 and a red chromaticity coordinate of CIEx,y [0.65, 0.34] was also obtained.

In this work, we synthesized two new red uorescent dopants and applied it in the fabrication of OLEDs. The PL and EL properties of devices utilizing red dopants dispersed PVK as light-emitting layer were studied. At the same time, we doped the dopants in co-host emitter (CHE) [5] systems of TBQ/PVK. It showed that by adjusting the ratio of these two host emitters, the EL efciency, luminance as well as color can be dramatically improved.

2. Experimental New red dopants TDCJTB and TDIN have been synthesized for using as red uorescent dye molecules in OLED. They were designed and synthesized via piperidine -catalyzed condensation of aldehyde with 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-(t-butyl)-6-methyl-4H-pyran or 4-(10 , 30 -indandione) -2-(t-butyl)-6-methyl-4H-pyran in good yields. The molecule structures of these are shown in Fig. 1. We used PVK as host material in order to get the lmforming possibility and conductivity of their mixture. The emitting layer was made by spin coating, which can avoid the thermal decomposition caused by the thermal evaporation.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 51688675; fax: +86 10 51683933.

E-mail address: zbdeng@center.njtu.edu.cn (Z. Deng). 0022-2313/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jlumin.2006.01.247

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640 J. Xiao et al. / Journal of Luminescence 122123 (2007) 639641

NC

CN

NC

CN O O O N O O

O N

O O CN CN TDCJTB TDIN O

TBQ

Fig. 1. Molecular structures of TDCJTB, TDIN, TBQ.

1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

1.0

0.8 Intensity (a.u.)

PL Intensity (a.u.)

0.6

0.4 TDCJTB TDIN DCM

TDCJTB TDIN TBQ

0.2

0.0 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 Wavelength (nm) (a)

0.0 300 (b) 350 400 450 500 550 600 Wavelength (nm) 650 700 750

Fig. 2. PL spectra of TDCJTB, TDIN and TBQ and EL spectra of TDCJTB, TDIN and DCM.

In this work two kinds of devices were fabricated: (1) Glass/ITO/PVK: dopant/BCP/Alq3/LiF/Al; (2) ITO/CHE (70 nm)/BCP (20 nm)/Alq3 (15 nm)/LiF (0.3 nm)/Al (150 nm). The CHE consists of a mixture of TBQ/PVK doped with a series of red uorescent dyes (10%). The light-emitting lm of CHE was prepared by spin coating their chloroform solution onto ITO glass substrate (with a sheet resistance of 20 O/&). And then hole-blocking material (BCP), electron-transporting material(Alq3), LiF, Al were deposited onto the emitting layer by a conventional thermal evaporation method at a chamber pressure of about 3 103 Pa. Prior to organic deposition, the ITOcoated glass plate was thoroughly cleaned by scrubbing, sonication, vapor degreasing and oxygen plasma treatment. The deposition rates were maintained to be 0.05, 0.05 and 0.02 nm s1 for BCP, Alq3 and LiF, respectively. The thickness of each layer was monitored by a quartz oscillating thickness monitor (IL-400). LiF was deposited onto an electron transport layer (ETL) as an electron injection material [6]. The PL and EL spectra were measured by the Fluolog-3 uorescent spectrometer, and

the brightness was measured by PR-650. All the measurements were carried out in ambient atmosphere at room temperature. 3. Results and discussion The results are shown in Fig. 2. The PL peaks of TDCJTB, TDIN and TBQ were 579, 597 and 459 nm, respectively. The properties of monolayer device(ITO/ PVK: dopant /LiF/Al) with the swing lm rate of 1000 r/min(70 nm) and the weight ratio of 1:10 (dopant: PVK) were best. Bright red emission could be obtained from this device and the blue light of PVK could not be seen. This indicated that emission of the red dopants originate from the excitation of PVK. The EL peaks of TDCJTB, TDIN and DCM are 603, 607 and 598 nm, respectively. Bright red emission could be obtained from the optimized double-layer device ((1) ITO/PVK: dopant / BCP/Alq3/LiF/Al). The devices with 20 nm-thick blocking layer (BCP) showed only the light emission from the red

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3000 2.5 2500 EL Brightness (cd/m2) EL Efficiency (cd/A) 2.0 2000 TDCJTB 1500 1000 500 0.5 0 0 (a) 2 4 6 8 10 12 Voltage (V) 14 16 18 20 (b) 4 6 8 10 12 14 Voltage (V) TDIN DCM

1.5

1.0 TDCJTB TDIN 16 18 20

Fig. 3. Brightness (a) and EL efciency (b) curves vs. applied voltage of red OLED doped.

dopants. This indicates that the BCP layer with 20 nm thickness could completely block the holes owing to the Alq3 layer, and the Alq3 layer in this device only functions as electron-transporting layer. The Commission International dEclairage (CIE) coordinates was [0.61, 0.39], [0.62, 0.38]. Compared with traditional DCM ([0.58, 0.41]) the two devices have better CIE coordinates. EL spectra at different voltages of the double-layer device for TDCJTB and TDIN showed that with increasing driven voltage the emission that came from the red dopants were intensied, yet the locations of the peaks were not modied. Fig. 3 (a) showed the characteristics of brightness versus voltage of device (2). From this gure we could see the highest EL brightness of TDCJTB and TDIN reached 1311 cd/m2 at the applied voltage of 18 V and 2497 cd/m2 at the applied voltage of 16 V, respectively. Compared with traditional DCM (1032 cd/m2 at applied voltage of 18 V) the two devices have higher brightness. In order to enhance the properties of the device, we add TBQ as co-host to the emitting layer. Experiments showed that when TBQs concentration is 30%, the properties of the device were best. The highest EL brightness of TDCJTB and TDIN reached 2080 cd/m2 at the voltage of 18 V and 4676 cd/m2 at the applied voltage of 17 V, respectively. The maximum EL efciency TDCJTB and TDIN is 2.57 and 2.54 cd/A at 40 mA/cm2, respectively (Fig. 3(b)). From EL spectra of TDCJTB and TDIN with 30% TBQ in PVK of 10% red dopants doped CHE device, we could not see the emitting light from TBQ, but the intensity of red light was increased. So TBQ might act as a bridge in the process of energy transfer. This might indicate that some emission of red dopants originate from the excitation of PVK and some emission of red dopants originated from the excitation of TBQ.

4. Conclusions In summary, new red dopants TDCJTB and TDIN have been synthesized for using as red uorescent dye molecule in OLEDs. By using BCP as holes block layer the OLEDs has been fabricated. The CIE coordinates and PL peaks of the devices are [0.61, 0.39], [0.62, 0.38] and 579, 597 nm, respectively. The highest EL brightness of TDCJTB and TDIN reached 1311 cd/m2 (18 V) and 2497 cd/m2 (16 V), respectively. Compared with traditional DCM ([0.58, 0.41], 1032 cd/m2 (18 V)) the two devices have better CIE coordinates and brightness. When TBQ is doped in these materials the EL efciency can both be improved at different level. Present research work shows that when TBQs concentration is 30%, the maximum EL efciency TDCJTB and TDIN is 2.57 and 2.54 cd/A at 40 mA/cm2, respectively. Acknowledgements This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (under contract no.90201004), and Beijing Science & Technology Foundation ( under contract no. H030430020410). References
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