Electrically controlled photoluminescence efficiency of organic rubrene microplates

•Fabrication of organic rubrene microplates (MPs) by physical vapor transport.•Observation of the sinusoidal variation of PL intensity of the MP with periodic change of electric field.•The results are analyzed in terms of the variation of charge dissociation rate of excitons by external electric field.

Semiconducting organic rubrene (5,6,11,12-tetraphenyltetracene) microplates (MPs) were fabricated using physical vapor transport to study tunable photoluminescence (PL) characteristics through an applied electric field. The nanoscale PL intensities of a rubrene MP, which were measured via high-resolution laser confocal microscopy (LCM), clearly depended on the applied electric field intensity. The LCM PL intensity of the rubrene MP sinusoidally varied with the periodic change of the electric field. We also observed the aging effect on the LCM PL intensity of rubrene MPs. Control of the charge dissociation rate of photoinduced excitons by the external electric field can be the cause of the tunable PL efficiency of the MP.

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