High-field recombination electroluminescence in vacuum-deposited anthracene and doped anthracene films

Abstract

The electroluminescence (EL) study of anthracene and tetracene-doped anthracene films deposited by a vacuum evaporation onto a substrate at temperatureT ₀=−60 °C is reported. Such films show high resistence to electrical breakdown so that their EL behaviour at high electric fields up to above 10⁶ V/cm could be investigated. The high-field EL is interpreted in terms of electron-hole recombination mechanisms with creation of emitting singlet excitons; the electron and hole concentration being limited by injection at metal contacts and by field-independent carrier velocities. The theoretical expression for current density follows the experimental data for fields above 4×10⁵ V/cm at room temperature and the EL intensity is predicted to be a power function of the measured current. It is suggested that in pure anthracene layers the power is determined by the contact injection conditions, i.e. by barrier heights and the effective masses of holes and electrons. In the doped films a guest molecules-induced energy trap distribution leads to a decrease of the power as confirmed by the experimental plots of the host EL intensity versus current density.