Hyunkoo Lee

R/G/B/Natural White Light Thin Colloidal Quantum Dot‐Based Light‐Emitting Devices

Bright, low-voltage driven colloidal quantum dot (QD)-based white light-emitting devices (LEDs) with practicable device performances are enabled by the direct exciton formation within quantum-dot active layers in a hybrid device structure. Detailed device characterization reveals that white-QLEDs can be rationalized as a parallel circuit, in which different QDs are connected through the same set of electrically common organic and inorganic charge transport layers.

Improvement of electron injection in inverted bottom-emission blue phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes using zinc oxide nanoparticles

We fabricated highly efficient iridium(III) bis[(4,6-di-fluorophenyl)-pyridinato-N,C2′] picolinate doped inverted bottom-emission blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes, with an electron injection layer of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs). The ZnO NPs layer lowers the turn-on voltage by about 4 V and significantly enhances the efficiency. The device with ZnO NPs shows peak efficiencies of 16.5 cd/A and 8.2%, about three times higher than those of the device without ZnO NPs. Since the ZnO NPs layer has a wide band gap, good electron transporting properties and low work function, it can be utilized as an effective electron injection layer with good transparency.

Improved Efficiency of Inverted Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Using Tin Dioxide Nanoparticles as an Electron Injection Layer

We demonstrated highly efficient inverted bottom-emission organic light-emitting diodes (IBOLEDs) using tin dioxide (SnO2) nanoparticles (NPs) as an electron injection layer at the interface between the indium tin oxide (ITO) cathode and the organic electron transport layer. The SnO2 NP layer can facilitate the electron injection since the conduction band energy level of SnO2 NPs (-3.6 eV) is located between the work function of ITO (4.8 eV) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy level of typical electron transporting molecules (-2.5 to -3.5 eV). As a result, the IBOLEDs with the SnO2 NPs exhibited a decrease of the driving voltage by 7 V at 1000 cd/m(2) compared to the device without SnO2 NPs. They also showed a significantly enhanced luminous current efficiency of 51.1 cd/A (corresponds to the external quantum efficiency of 15.6%) at the same brightness, which is about two times higher values than that of the device without SnO2 NPs. We also measured the angular dependence of irradiance and electroluminescence (EL) spectra in the devices with SnO2 NPs and found that they had a nearly Lambertian emission profile and few shift in EL spectrum through the entire viewing angles, which are considered as remarkable and essential results for the application of OLEDs to display devices.

New carbazole-based host material for low-voltage and highly efficient red phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

A new carbazole-based host material for red emitters, BBTC, was designed, synthesized and characterized with the phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs). With the molecular design strategy of maintaining the large triplet energy and a good hole transporting ability of carbazole while increasing the morphological and electrochemical stability, the C3 and C6 positions of carbazole are blocked with biphenyl groups and the C9 position is terminated with a terphenyl group. Red PHOLEDs employing a conventional dopant material, bis(1-phenylisoquinoline)(acetylacetonate)iridium(III) ((piq)2Ir(acac)), in the emissive layer showed nearly 100% internal quantum efficiency (corresponding to the external quantum efficiency of 19.3%) with reduced efficiency roll-off. We attribute these results to the good electron–hole balance resulting from the good hole mobility of BBTC and low hole injection barrier from the hole transport layer to BBTC host in the emission layer. In addition, owing to its good hole transporting property, it can be utilized as a hole transport layer in organic light-emitting devices enabling low voltage operation of the devices.

Flexion bonding transfer of multilayered graphene as a top electrode in transparent organic light-emitting diodes

Graphene has attracted considerable attention as a next-generation transparent conducting electrode, because of its high electrical conductivity and optical transparency. Various optoelectronic devices comprising graphene as a bottom electrode, such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photovoltaics, quantum-dot LEDs, and light-emitting electrochemical cells, have recently been reported. However, performance of optoelectronic devices using graphene as top electrodes is limited, because the lamination process through which graphene is positioned as the top layer of these conventional OLEDs is a lack of control in the surface roughness, the gapless contact, and the flexion bonding between graphene and organic layer of the device. Here, a multilayered graphene (MLG) as a top electrode is successfully implanted, via dry bonding, onto the top organic layer of transparent OLED (TOLED) with flexion patterns. The performance of the TOLED with MLG electrode is comparable to that of a conventional TOLED with a semi-transparent thin-Ag top electrode, because the MLG electrode makes a contact with the TOLED with no residue. In addition, we successfully fabricate a large-size transparent segment panel using the developed MLG electrode. Therefore, we believe that the flexion bonding technology presented in this work is applicable to various optoelectronic devices.

Device characteristics of blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes depending on the electron transport materials

Iridium-(III)-bis[(4,6-di-fluorophenyl)-pyridinate-N,C2′]picolinate-based blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes with different electron transport materials were fabricated. Each electron transport material had different electron mobilities and triplet energies. The device with 1,3,5-tri(m-pyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene had the highest external quantum efficiency (20.1%) and luminous current efficiency (33.1 cd/A) due to its high electron mobility and triplet energy. The operational stability of each device was also compared with that of the others. The device with 2,2′,2″(1,3,5-benzenetriyl)tris-(1-phenyl-1H-benzimidazole) was found to have a longer lifetime than the other devices.

Colored semi-transparent organic light-emitting diodes

Semi-transparent, colored organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) were demonstrated by comprising a microcavity-embedded structure that uses an organic layer sandwiched between thin metal layers as the cathode. Without bias, the colored OLEDs exhibited various colors depending on the metal/organic/metal cathode configuration, by means of internal interference effects under ambient illumination. By varying the thickness of the organic layer, the transmittance and reflectance of the colored OLEDs could be controlled. The influence of the microcavity cathode on the light-emitting performances of OLEDs, such as the efficiencies and the electroluminescence spectra, was also studied.

Design and fabrication of two-stack tandem-type all-phosphorescent white organic light-emitting diode for achieving high color rendering index and luminous efficacy

White organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) are regarded as the general lighting source. Although color rendering index (CRI) and luminous efficacy are usually in trade-off relation, we will discuss about the optimization of both characteristics, particularly focusing on the spectrum of a blue emitter. The emission at a shorter wavelength is substantially important for achieving very high CRI (> 90). The luminous efficacy of a phosphorescent blue emitter is low as its color falls in the deeper blue range; however, that does not show any significant influence on the WOLEDs. WOLEDs with different blue dopants are compared to confirm the calculation of the CRI and luminous efficacy, and the optimized WOLEDs exhibit luminous efficacy of 38.3 lm/W and CRI of 90.9.

Light-adaptable display for the future advertising service

ABSTRACT In this paper, a new light-adaptable display (LAD) structure with minimum power consumption is proposed for the future advertising service, and the demonstrated results are reported. An organic light-emitting diode with color reflection (colored OLED) was applied for the reflective- and emissive-mode device, and a guest-host liquid-crystal device (GH-LC) was adopted for the light shutter device. The current efficiency and reflectance of the colored OLED were 35.15 cd/A at 457 cd/m2 luminance and 63% for the yellow color, respectively. The measured contrast ratio of GH-LC was 15.5:1 at dark-room conditions, respectively. Transparent oxide thin-film transistors were used for the backplane, and their average mobility was 9.08 cm2/V s, with a 0.5 standard deviation. Through the optimization of the fabrication process and the structures of each device, the LAD adaptively operating according to the environmental illuminance from dark to 10,000 nits was successfully demonstrated. Moreover, a new LAD driving method was proposed for minimizing the power consumption.

Smart approach to liquid electrolyte-based multi-colored electrochemiluminescence for lighting applications

As potential lighting-emitting devices, electrochemiluminescence (ECL) devices are promising in terms of device structure and fabrication and involve low processing cost compared to organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs). Herein, liquid electrolyte-based multi-colored ECL devices (ECLDs) were prepared with organic materials dissolved in electrolyte solution, which generated red, yellow, green, and blue emissions under an applied square-wave AC bias voltage. Among the four different emissive colors, yellow showed a strong and stable emission, which enabled quantitative measurements, including a luminance of 12 cd m−2 at 4.5 V.