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Thin-film encapsulation of organic electronic devices based on vacuum evaporated lithium fluoride as protective buffer layer

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Abstract

Encapsulation is indispensable for organic thin-film electronic devices to ensure reliable operation and long-term stability. For thin-film encapsulating organic electronic devices, insulating polymers and inorganic metal oxides thin films are widely used. However, spin-coating of insulating polymers directly on organic electronic devices may destroy or introduce unwanted impurities in the underlying organic active layers. And also, sputtering of inorganic metal oxides may damage the underlying organic semiconductors. Here, we demonstrated that by utilizing vacuum evaporated lithium fluoride (LiF) as protective buffer layer, spin-coated insulating polymer polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and sputtered inorganic material Er2O3, can be successfully applied for thin film encapsulation of copper phthalocyanine (CuPc)-based organic diodes. By encapsulating with LiF/PVA/LiF trilayer and LiF/Er2O3 bilayer films, the device lifetime improvements of ~10 and 15 times can be achieved. These methods should be applicable for thin-film encapsulation of all kinds of organic electronic devices. Moisture-induced hole trapping, and Al top electrode oxidation are suggest to be the origins of current decay for the LiF/PVA/LiF trilayer and LiF/Er2O3 bilayer films encapsulated devices, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Program on Key Research Project Grant No. 2016YFF0203605.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Yingquan Peng, Sihan Ding, Sunan Xu, Wenli Lv, Ziqiang Xu, Yuhuan Yang, Yi Wei & Ying Tang

  2. Institute of Microelectronics, School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Yingquan Peng, Zhanwei Wen & Sunan Xu

  3. College of Information Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Ying Wang

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  1. Yingquan Peng
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Correspondence to Yingquan Peng.

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Peng, Y., Ding, S., Wen, Z. et al. Thin-film encapsulation of organic electronic devices based on vacuum evaporated lithium fluoride as protective buffer layer. Appl. Phys. A 123, 178 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-017-0818-4

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