Electrical and optical characteristics of phosphorescent organic light-emitting device with thin-codoped layer insertion

•Thin and low concentration Ir-compound partially doped in the emitting layer.•In blue OLED, driving voltage decreased and spectral stabilized due to the insertion of this thin layer.•Such a method can be used for stabilizing spectrum in white OLED.

In this paper, we demonstrated the changes of electrical and optical characteristics of a phosphorescent organic light-emitting device (OLED) with tris(phenylpyridine)iridium Ir(ppy)3 thin layer (4 nm) slightly codoped (1%) inside the emitting layer (EML) close to the cathode side. Such a thin layer helped for electron injection and transport from the electron transporting layer into the EML, which reduced the driving voltage (0.40 V at 100 mA/cm2). Electroluminescence (EL) spectral shift at different driving voltage was observed in our blue OLED with [(4,6-di-fluoropheny)-pyridinato-N,C2′]picolinate (FIrpic) emitter, which came from the recombination zone shift. With the incorporation of thin-codoped Ir(ppy)3, such EL spectral shift was almost undetectable (color coordinate shift (0.000, 0.001) from 100 to 10,000 cd/m2), due to the compensation of Ir(ppy)3 emission at low driving voltage. Such a methodology can be applied to a white OLED which stabilized the EL spectrum and the color coordinates ((0.012, 0.002) from 100 to 10,000 cd/m2).

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