Numerical study on exciton transport and light emission for organic light emitting diodes with an emission layer

This paper reports the results of a numerical study on carrier injection and exciton transport in an organic light emitting diode (OLED) structure based on tris (8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminum (Alq3). Because charge accumulation at the interfaces between the emission layer (EML) and transport layer are believed to increase the recombination rate, which also increases the exciton density, a numerical study was performed on the effect of inserting an EML in the bilayer structure. In the first case considered, the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of the EML was aligned with the LUMO of the hole transport layer (HTL), whereas the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of the EML was aligned with the HOMO of the electron transport layer (ETL). In the second case, the LUMO of the EML was aligned with the LUMO of the ETL and the HOMO of the EML was aligned with the HOMO of the HTL. In case of a charge-blocking device, most of the recombination appeared to occur at both edges of the EML because the electric field exhibited a peak in these areas. On the other hand, in the case of the charge-confining device, the electric field was confined at the interface between the EML and ETL. This paper also discussed the effect of the insertion of a doping layer as transport layer.