Lifetime characteristics of flexible organic light emitting diodes on PET substrate with plasma polymer barrier layers

Plasma polymerized para-xylene ($PP_PX$) deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) was used as the barrier layer on the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate to improve lifetime of the flexible organic light-emitting diodes (FOLEDs). The $PP_PX$ barrier layer deposited on top of the PET substrate with plasma power of 30 W at deposition pressure of 0.2 torr showed transmittance spectra good enough to be applied in FOLED on PET substrates. FOLEDs with the $PP_PX$ barrier layer (barrier-FOLEDs) showed similar I-V and B-V characteristics to FOLEDs without the $PP_PX$ layer (control-FOLEDs). The lifetime of barrier-FOLED was two times longer than that of the control-FOLED. With $PP_PX$ passivation layers, lifetimes of both control and barrier-FOLEDs were improved by more than 4 times. These results show that PECVD deposited $PP_PX$ layers can be used as barrier layers for FOLEDs on plastic substrates as well as passivation layers for general OLEDs.