Takahisa Tanabe

5.1: Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode Panel using Organic Thin-Film Transistors

By using organic thin-film transistors with pentacene as the active organic layer, active matrix organic light emitting diode panel has been developed. The number of pixels in the panel is 8 × 8, and each pixel is driven by switching and driving transistors. We confirmed 16 gray scales representation by means of an analog driving method.

Active Matrix Driving Organic Light-Emitting Diode Panel Using Organic Thin-Film Transistors

We developed an active matrix driving organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel on a glass substrate using two organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) per pixel, a switching OTFT and a driving OTFT. The OTFTs are bottom contact structures with the high-dielectric constant gate insulator tantalum oxide (Ta2O5, relative dielectric constant of 23) produced by anodization in ammonium adipate solution and with pentacene as the active layer. The W/L (where W and L are the OTFTs channel width and length, respectively) was 400 µm/10 µm for the switching OTFTs and 680 µm/10 µm for the driving OTFTs. The characteristics of the OTFTs were improved by treating the Ta2O5 surface with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS), so that the field-effect mobility was 2.0×10-1 cm2 V-1 s-1 and the current on/off ratio was 105. A green phosphorescent dopant, tris(2-phenylpyridine)iridium [Ir(ppy)3], was used for the OLED layer. The panel had 8×8 pixels and the aperture ratio was 27%. We confirmed a 16-gray-scale representation and a luminance of 400 cd/m2.