Published June 21, 2004 | Version v1
Journal article

Real-time visualization of thermally activated degradation of the ITO/CuPC/NPB/Alq3 stack used in one of the organic light-emitting diodes

  • 1. Department of Electronic Engineering, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong (China)

Description

We demonstrate the thermally activated degradation pathways of the ITO-coated glass/CuPc (copper phthalocyanine)/NPB (N, N'-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N, N'-diphthalbenzidine)/Alq3 (tris(8-hydroxyquinoline aluminium) device by using variable temperature tapping mode atomic force microscopy. It is observed that the initially morphological change of the top Alq3 surface occurred at about 75 deg. C. NPB gradually erupted from the Alq3 capping layer at 120 deg. C. The NPB layer and the Alq3 layer were gradually mixed with increase in temperature from 130 deg. C. Simultaneously, de-wetting took place at the interface of CuPc/NPB. Using conducting atomic force microscopy we see that morphological change in the device leads to a variation in current-voltage characteristics of the degraded ITO/CuPc/NPB/Alq3 device. The results should shed light on the thermally activated degradation mechanisms of organic light-emitting diodes

Availability note (English)

Available online at http://stacks.iop.org/0022-3727/37/1603/d4_12_002.pdf or at the Web site for the Journal of Physics. D, Applied Physics (ISSN 1361-6463) http://www.iop.org/

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Journal of Physics. D, Applied Physics
Journal Volume
37
Journal Issue
12
Journal Page Range
p. 1603-1608
ISSN
0022-3727
CODEN
JPAPBE