Min-Jae Maeng

Graphene interlayer for current spreading enhancement by engineering of barrier height in GaN-based light-emitting diodes

Pristine graphene and a graphene interlayer inserted between indium tin oxide (ITO) and p-GaN have been analyzed and compared with ITO, which is a typical current spreading layer in lateral GaN LEDs. Beyond a certain current injection, the pristine graphene current spreading layer (CSL) malfunctioned due to Joule heat that originated from the high sheet resistance and low work function of the CSL. However, by combining the graphene and the ITO to improve the sheet resistance, it was found to be possible to solve the malfunctioning phenomenon. Moreover, the light output power of an LED with a graphene interlayer was stronger than that of an LED using ITO or graphene CSL. We were able to identify that the improvement originated from the enhanced current spreading by inspecting the contact and conducting the simulation.

Mechanistic Understanding of Improved Performance of Graphene Cathode Inverted Organic Light-Emitting Diodes by Photoemission and Impedance Spectroscopy

Modification of multilayer graphene films was investigated for a cathode of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). By doping the graphene/electron transport layer (ETL) interface with Li, the driving voltage of the OLED was reduced dramatically from 24.5 to 3.2 V at a luminance of 1000 cd/m2. The external quantum efficiency was also enhanced from 3.4 to 12.9%. Surface analyses showed that the Li doping significantly lowers the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level of the ETL, thereby reducing the electron injection barrier and facilitating electron injection from the cathode. Impedance spectroscopy analyses performed on electron-only devices (EODs) revealed the existence of distributed trap states with a well-defined activation energy, which is successfully described by the Havriliak-Negami capacitance functions and the temperature-independent frequency dispersion parameters. In particular, the graphene EOD showed a unique high-frequency feature as compared to the indium tin oxide one, which could be explained by an additional parallel capacitance element.

Multifunctional Bilayer Template for Near-Infrared Sensitive Organic Solar Cells

For organic solar cells (OSCs) based on nonplanar phthalocyanines, it has previously been reported that a thin film composed of triclinic crystals with face-on (or flat-lying)-oriented molecules, typically obtained with a CuI template layer, is desired for optical absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) spectral region. However, this work demonstrates that for a PbPc-C60 donor-acceptor pair, less face-on orientation with a broader orientation distribution obtained with a new template layer consisting of a ZnPc/CuI bilayer is more desirable in terms of solar cell efficiency than the face-on orientation. A NIR-sensitive PbPc-C60 OSC employing this bilayer-templated PbPc film is found to increase the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) by 36% on average in the NIR spectral region compared to a device using a CuI-templated PbPc film. Analyses of the change in IQE using the exciton diffusion model and the entropy- and disorder-driven charge-separation model suggest that the improved IQE is attributed to the facilitated dissociation of charge-transfer excitons as well as the reduction in exciton quenching near the indium tin oxide surface.

Highly efficient green, blue, and white phosphorescent inverted organic light-emitting diodes by improving charge injection and balance

To improve the performance of inverted organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), we investigated the electrical, optical, and interfacial properties of three different lithium (Li)-doped electron transport materials (ETMs): tris(3-(3pyridyl)mesityl)borane (3TPYMB), 1,3,5-tri(m-pyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene (TmPyPB), and 1,3-bis(3,5-dipyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene (BmPyPB). The electron injection barriers (EIBs) between indium-tin-oxide and the ETMs were deduced for both pristine and Li-doped cases from ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy measurements and optical band gap values. The Li-doped ETMs showed EIB values of approximately 0.03 eV, 0.77 eV, and 0.81 eV for 3TPYMB, TmPyPB, and BmPyPB, respectively, which are much lower than those of their pristine counterparts of 0.94 eV, 1.14 eV, and 1.48 eV, respectively. The Li-doped ETMs were employed as electron injection layers (EILs) of inverted bottom-emission OLEDs (IBE-OLEDs) with green phosphorescence. IBE-OLEDs with 3TPYMB, TmPyPB, and BmPyPB EILs exhibited driving voltages of 3.6 V, 4.0 V, and 4.5 V at 1000 cd m−2 and maximum external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of 20.3%, 19.7%, and 16.5%, respectively. From the low EIB of Li-doped 3TPYMB, we also demonstrated highly efficient blue and white phosphorescent IBE-OLEDs. We optimized the device structure to improve the charge balance and out-coupling efficiency by changing the hole injection layer and the thickness of the hole and electron transport layers with optical simulation. The blue device showed a maximum EQE and luminous current efficiency of 22.9% and 43.1 cd A−1, respectively. In addition, the white device exhibited a high EQE and luminous efficacy of 19.3% and 37.8 lm W−1 at 3 mA cm−2 (∼1000 cd m−2), respectively. To the best of our knowledge, the efficiencies of these green, blue, and white devices are the highest values obtained to date with a low driving voltage for IBE-OLEDs without any additional light-extraction structure. Since the Li-doped 3TPYMB has an extremely low EIB and shows good device performance, it can be utilized as an effective EIL in inverted-structure devices.