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Electron conduction properties of emitting layer containing nanoaggregates in crystalline OLEDs

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Abstract

Since crystalline organic materials possess high carrier mobility, good thermal stability, and chemical stability, Crystalline organic light-emitting diodes (C-OLEDs) exhibit superior characteristics of low turn-on voltage, low operating voltage, high light output, high power efficiency, and low Joule heat loss, demonstrating the great potential of C-OLEDs in the OLED field. C-OLED, which consists of a crystalline host matrix (CHM) and “hot excitonic” nanoaggregates (HENA) sensitizer, is a newly proposed promising light-emitting structure. Compared to other crystalline OLEDs, the CHM-HENA OLED has a higher device efficiency owing to heterojunction effect between crystalline host matrix and “hot exciton” nanoaggregates. However, it is unknown how nanoaggregates affect the electron conductivity of devices. In this paper, we adjust the size of the nanoaggregates and examine the growth behavior of nanoaggregates. There is a critical value for the growth of PAC nanoaggregates when the nominal deposition thickness (NDT) of PAC nanoaggregates is between 0.8 and 1.0 nm. By investigating conductivity with metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure diodes, the size of nanoaggregates (NDT of approximately 0.8 nm) with the best electrical conductivity properties is found. The current of the CHM-HENA OLEDs with different NDT of PAC nanoaggregates and the corresponding the CHM-HENA MOS-structure diodes conductance follows the same trend. The results of this work will greatly assist the conductance study of CHM-HENA OLEDs.

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Data availability

Data (images and measurement files) supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors, Bo Yu and Feng Zhu, upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Jilin Yuanhe Electronic Material Co. for their support in preparing materials.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0204704).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China

    Jie Ren, Bo Yu, Feng Zhu & Donghang Yan

  2. School of Applied Chemistry and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Jie Ren, Feng Zhu & Donghang Yan

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  1. Jie Ren
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  2. Bo Yu
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  3. Feng Zhu
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  4. Donghang Yan
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Contributions

BY, FZ and DHY initiated and designed the research. JR carried out the growth and characterization of the crystalline thin films. JR prepared the MOS-structure diodes and the C-OLEDs for characterization. All authors discussed the results, prepared and commented on the manuscript. BY, FZ and DHY supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Bo Yu or Feng Zhu.

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Ren, J., Yu, B., Zhu, F. et al. Electron conduction properties of emitting layer containing nanoaggregates in crystalline OLEDs. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1711 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-11109-y

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