Steady-state and transient optoelectronic characteristics of styrene-and quinoline-based derivative

Abstract

Styrene and quinoline groups are commonly incorporated into the organic fluorescent materials for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this work, a type of small molecule derived from styrene and quinoline, with a chemical structure of 2,2'-(2,5-dimethoxy-1,4-phylenedivinylene)bis-8- acetoxyquinoline (MPV-AQ), is employed as the emitter and electron transporting material in the OLEDs, and its optoelectronic characteristics such as charge-carrier injection, transporting and recombination are investigated by the steady-state and transient technologies. It is found that the electron injection from the cathode into the MPV-AQ layer shows the Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling characteristic in the N,N'-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N'-diphenyl-benzidine (NPB)/MPV-AQ bilayer OLED, which is different from the Richardson-Schottky (RS) thermionic emission in the electron-only device based on the MPV-AQ single-layer. The difference in electron injection is attributed to the bend of energy bands of MPV-AQ in the NPB/MPV-AQ device, which can be caused by the charge accumulation at the NPB/MPV-AQ interface. The accumulated charges should mainly be the holes on the side of NPB layer because the electron mobility of MPV-AQ is much lower than the hole mobility of NPB. Owing to the bending of lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of MPV-AQ, the tunneling distance for electrons is significantly reduced, which is favorable for the FN tunneling. The barrier height for electron injection is calculated to be 0.23 eV by fitting the current-voltage curve of the NPB/MPV-AQ bilayer OLED. And the electron mobility of MPV-AQ is determined by the delay time of transient electroluminescence (EL) and shows field-dependence with the value on the order of 10^–6 cm²/(V·s). In addition, the electron-hole recombination coefficient is obtained from the long time component of the temporal decay of the EL intensity, and the coefficient is found to decrease with the applied voltage increasing, which is consistent with the efficiency roll-off in this bilayer OLED. This study may provide a foundation for understanding the electronic processes of carrier injection, transport and recombination in the OLEDs, which is helpful in improving the device performance.