Modeling electroluminescence in insulating polymers under ac stress: effect of excitation waveform

A charge transport model allowing the description of electroluminescence in polyethylene films under ac stress is proposed. The fluid model incorporates bipolar charge injection/extraction, transport and recombination. The physics is based on hopping mobility of electronic carriers between traps with an exponential distribution in which trap filling controls the mobility. The computation mesh is very tight close to the electrodes, of the order of 0.4 nm, allowing mapping of the density of positive and negative carriers during sinusoidal, triangular and square 50 Hz voltage waveforms. Experiment and simulation fit nicely and the time dependence of the electroluminescence intensity is accounted for by the charge behaviour. Light emission scales with the injection current. It is shown that space charge affects a layer 10 nm away from the electrode where the mobility is increased as compared with the bulk mobility due to the high density of charge. The approach is very encouraging and opens the way to model space charge under time-varying voltages.