Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED)

Presentation By : Anil Kamat Date : February 23,2010

Mahindra Satyam 2009

What are OLEDs :

Imagine having a high-definition TV that is 80 inches wide and less than a quarter-inch thick, consumes less power than most TVs on the market today and can be rolled up when you're not using it. What if you could have a

"heads up" display in your car? How about a display monitor built into your
clothing? These devices may be possible in the near future with the help of a technology called organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs are solid-state devices composed of thin films of organic molecules that create light with the application of electricity. OLEDs can provide brighter, crisper displays on electronic devices and use less power than conventional light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or liquid crystal displays

(LCDs) used today.

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OLED Components:
Like an LED, an OLED is a solid-state semiconductor device that is 100 to 500 nanometers thick or about 200 times smaller than a human hair. OLED's can have either two layers or three layers of organic material; in the

latter design, the third layer helps transport electrons from the cathode to the
emissive layer. In this presentation, we'll be focusing on the two-layer design.

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An OLED consists of the following parts (Figure 1) :

1. Substrate (clear plastic, glass, foil) - The substrate supports the OLED. 2. Anode (transparent) - The anode removes electrons (adds electron "holes") when a current flows through the device. 3. Organic layers - These layers are made of organic molecules or polymers. A. Conducting layer - This layer is made of organic plastic molecules that transport "holes" from the anode. One conducting polymer used in OLED's is polyaniline. B. Emissive layer - This layer is made of organic plastic molecules (different ones from the conducting layer) that transport electrons from the cathode; this is where light is made. One polymer used in the emissive

layer is polyfluorene.
4. Cathode (may or may not be transparent depending on the type of OLED) - The cathode injects electrons when a current flows through the device.
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Figure 1.
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Making OLEDs :
The biggest part of manufacturing OLED's is applying the organic layers to

the substrate. This can be done in three ways:

1. Vacuum deposition or vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) - In a vacuum chamber, the organic molecules are gently heated (evaporated) and allowed to condense as thin films onto cooled substrates. This process is expensive and

inefficient.
2. Organic vapor phase deposition (OVPD) - In a low-pressure, hot-walled reactor chamber, a carrier gas transports evaporated organic molecules onto cooled substrates, where they condense into thin films. Using a carrier gas increases the efficiency and reduces the cost of making OLED's. 3. Inkjet printing - With inkjet technology, OLED's are sprayed onto substrates just like inks are sprayed onto paper during printing. Inkjet technology greatly reduces the cost of OLED manufacturing and allows OLED's to be printed onto very large films for large displays like 80-inch TV screens or electronic billboards.
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Laboratory set up of a high-precision inkjet printer for making polymer OLED displays
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How do OLEDs Emit Light?

OLED's emit light in a similar manner to LEDs, through a process called Electro Phosphorescence. The process is as follows: A. The battery or power supply of the device containing the OLED applies a voltage across the OLED. B. An electrical current flows from the cathode to the anode through the organic layers (an electrical current is a flow of electrons). 1) The cathode gives electrons to the emissive layer of organic molecules. 2) The anode removes electrons from the conductive layer of organic molecules. (This is the equivalent to giving electron holes to the conductive layer.)

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C. At the boundary between the emissive and the conductive layers, electrons find electron holes. 1.) When an electron finds an electron hole, the electron fills the hole (it falls into an energy level of the atom that's missing an electron). 2.) When this happens, the electron gives up energy in the form of a photon of light . D. The OLED emits light. E. The color of the light depends on the type of organic molecule in the emissive layer. Manufacturers place several types of organic films on the same OLED to make color displays. F. The intensity or brightness of the light depends on the amount of electrical current applied: the more current, the brighter the light.

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Types of OLED's: Passive and Active Matrix

There are several types of OLEDs: a) Passive-matrix OLED b) Active-matrix OLED c) Transparent OLED

d) Top-emitting OLED
e) Foldable OLED f) White OLED

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Each type has different uses. In the following sections, we'll discuss each type of OLED. Let's start with passive-matrix and active-matrix OLED's.

Passive-matrix OLED (PMOLED) :

PMOLEDs have strips of cathode, organic layers and strips of anode. The anode strips are arranged perpendicular to the cathode strips. The intersections of the cathode and anode make up the pixels where light is emitted. External

circuitry applies current to selected strips of anode and cathode, determining

which pixels get turned on and which pixels remain off. Again, the brightness of each pixel is proportional to the amount of applied current. PMOLEDs are easy to make, but they consume more power than other types

of OLED, mainly due to the power needed for the external circuitry. PMOLEDs
are most efficient for text and icons and are best suited for small screens (2- to 3inch diagonal) such as those you find in cell phones, PPAs and MP3 players. Even with the external circuitry, passive-matrix OLED's consume less battery

power than the LCDs that currently power these devices.

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Active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) :

AMOLEDs have full layers of cathode, organic molecules and anode, but the anode layer overlays a thin film transistor (TFT) array that forms a matrix. The TFT array itself is the circuitry that determines which pixels get turned on

to form an image.
AMOLED's consume less power than PMOLEDs because the TFT array requires less power than external circuitry, so they are efficient for large displays. AMOLED's also have faster refresh rates suitable for video. The best uses for AMOLED's are computer monitors, large-screen TVs and electronic signs or billboards.

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Types of OLED's: Transparent, Top-emitting, Foldable and White : Transparent OLED :

Transparent OLED's have only transparent components (substrate, cathode and anode) and, when turned off, are up to 85 percent as transparent as their substrate. When a transparent OLED display is turned on, it allows light to pass in both directions. A transparent OLED display can be either active- or passive-matrix. This technology can be used for heads-up displays.

Top-emitting OLED :
Top-emitting OLED's have a substrate that is either opaque or reflective. They are best suited to active-matrix design. Manufacturers may use top-emitting OLED displays in smart cards.

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Foldable OLED :
Foldable OLED's have substrates made of very flexible metallic foils or plastics. Foldable OLED's are very lightweight and durable. Their use in devices such as cell phones and PDAs can reduce breakage, a major cause for return or repair. Potentially, foldable OLED displays can be attached to fabrics to create "smart" clothing, such as outdoor survival clothing with an integrated computer chip, cell phone, GPS receiver and OLED display sewn into it.

White OLED :
White OLED's emit white light that is brighter, more uniform and more energy efficient than that emitted by fluorescent lights. White OLED's also have the truecolor qualities of incandescent lighting. Because OLED's can be made in large sheets, they can replace fluorescent lights that are currently used in homes and buildings. Their use could potentially reduce energy costs for lighting.
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OLED Advantages and Disadvantages :

The LCD is currently the display of choice in small devices and is also popular in large-screen TVs. Regular LEDs often form the digits on digital clocks and other electronic devices. OLEDs offer many advantages over both LCDs and LEDs: 1. The plastic, organic layers of an OLED are thinner, lighter and more flexible than the crystalline layers in an LED or LCD. 2. Because the light-emitting layers of an OLED are lighter, the substrate of an OLED can be flexible instead of rigid. OLED substrates can be plastic rather than the glass used for LEDs and LCDs. 3. OLED's are brighter than LEDs. Because the organic layers of an OLED are much thinner than the corresponding inorganic crystal layers of an LED, the conductive and emissive layers of an OLED can be multi-layered. Also, LEDs and LCDs require glass for support, and glass absorbs some light. OLED's do not require glass.
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OLED Advantages and Disadvantages :

4. OLED's do not require backlighting like LCDs. LCDs work by selectively blocking areas of the backlight to make the images that you see, while OLED's generate light themselves. Because OLED's do not require backlighting, they consume much less power than LCDs (most of the LCD power goes to the backlighting). This is especially important for batteryoperated devices such as cell phones. 5. OLED's are easier to produce and can be made to larger sizes. Because OLED's are essentially plastics, they can be made into large, thin sheets. It is much more difficult to grow and lay down so many liquid crystals. 6. OLED's have large fields of view, about 170 degrees. Because LCDs work

by blocking light, they have an inherent viewing obstacle from certain

angles. OLED's produce their own light, so they have a much wider viewing range.
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Mahindra Satyam 2009

Problems with OLED:

OLED seems to be the perfect technology for all types of displays, but it also has some problems: 1. Lifetime - While red and green OLED films have longer lifetimes (46,000 to

230,000 hours), blue OLED's historically have had a lifetime of around 14,000
hours to half original brightness (five years at 8 hours a day) when used for flatpanel displays, which is lower than the typical lifetime of LCD, LED or PDP technologyeach currently rated for about 60,000 hours to half brightness,

depending on manufacturer and model.

2. Color balance issues -Additionally, as the OLED material used to produce blue light degrades significantly more rapidly than the materials that produce other colors, blue light output will decrease relative to the other colors of light. This differential

color output change will change the color balance of the display and is much more
noticeable than a decrease in overall luminance. This can be partially avoided by adjusting colour balance but this may require advanced control circuits and interaction with the user, which is unacceptable for some uses.
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3. Manufacturing - Manufacturing processes are expensive right now.

4. Water Damage - The intrusion of water into displays can damage or destroy the organic materials. Therefore, improved sealing processes are important for practical manufacturing. Water damage may especially limit the longevity of more flexible displays. 5. Outdoor performance : As an emissive display technology, OLED's are 100% reliant converting electricity to light whereas most LCD displays contain at least some portion of reflective technology and e-ink leads the way in efficiency with ~33% reflectivity of sunlight, enabling the display to be used without any artificial light source. OLED's typically produce only around 200 nits of light leading to poor readability in bright ambient light, such as outdoors, whereas displays that use reflective light are able to increase their brightness in the presence of ambient light to help overcome unwanted surface reflections without using any additional power.
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6. Power Consumption : While an OLED will consume around 40% of the power
of an LCD displaying an image which is primarily black, for the majority of images, it will consume 60-80% of the power of an LCD - however it can use over three times as much power to display an image with a white background such as a document or website. This can lead to disappointing real-world battery life in mobile devices. 7. Screen Burn-in : Unlike displays with a common light source, the brightness of each OLED pixel fades depending on the content displayed. Combined with the short lifetime the organic dyes, this leads to screen burn-in, worse than was common in the days of CRT-based displays

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Development in the OLED market shows progression in technology, applications, materials and manufacturing processes.
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Phosphorescent organic light-emitting diode (PHOLEDs) :

Like all types of OLED's, PHOLEDs function via the following method: an electric current is applied to organic molecules, which then emit bright light. When electrons and holes meet in the device they form excitons (Excited State Photons) with 25% probability of forming a singlet and 75% probability

of forming a triplet. The excitons recombine to produce light through

spontaneous emission. In fluorescent OLED's, the recombination of triplet excitons is quantum mechanically forbidden by selection rules. However, this is allowed in phosphorescent OLED's which generate light from both triplet and singlet excitons allowing them to be nearly 100% efficient at converting injected charge into light. In comparison, traditional fluorescent OLED's only convert approximately 25% of formed excitons into light.

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Use :
Due to their extremely high level of energy efficiency, even when compared to other OLED's, PHOLED's are being studied for potential use in large-screen displays such as computer monitors or TV screens, as well as general lighting needs. One potential use of PHOLED's as lighting devices is to cover walls

with gigantic PHOLED displays. This would allow entire rooms to glow
uniformly, rather than require the use of light bulbs which distribute light unequally throughout a room.

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Thank you

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