Quantum efficiency harmonic analysis of exciton annihilation in organic light emitting diodes

J. S. Price, Noel Christopher Giebink

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Various exciton annihilation processes are known to impact the efficiency roll-off of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs); however, isolating and quantifying their contribution in the presence of other factors such as changing charge balance continue to be a challenge for routine device characterization. Here, we analyze OLED electroluminescence resulting from a sinusoidal dither superimposed on the device bias and show that nonlinearity between recombination current and light output arising from annihilation mixes the quantum efficiency measured at different dither harmonics in a manner that depends uniquely on the type and magnitude of the annihilation process. We derive a series of analytical relations involving the DC and first harmonic external quantum efficiency that enable annihilation rates to be quantified through linear regression independent of changing charge balance and evaluate them for prototypical fluorescent and phosphorescent OLEDs based on the emitters 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-methyl-6-(4-dimethylaminostyryl)-4H-pyran and platinum octaethylporphyrin, respectively. We go on to show that, in most cases, it is sufficient to calculate the needed quantum efficiency harmonics directly from derivatives of the DC light versus current curve, thus enabling this analysis to be conducted solely from standard light-current-voltage measurement data.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number263302
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume106
Issue number26
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 29 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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