Abstract
Electroluminescent(EL) devices based on organic materials have been of great interest due to their possible applications for large-area flat-panel displays. They are attractive because of their capability of multi-color emission, and low operation voltage. An approach to realize such device characteristics is to use active layers of lanthanide complexes with their inherent extremely sharp emission bands in stead of commonly known organic dyes. In general, organic molecular compounds show emission due to their $\pi$-$\pi*$ transitions resulting in luminescence bandwidths of about 80 to 100nm. Spin statistic estimations lead to an internal quantum efficiency of dye-based EL devices limited to 25%. On the contrary, the fluorescence of lanthanide complexes is based on an intramolecular energy transfer from the triplet of the organic ligand to the 4f energy states of the ion. Therefore, theoretical internal quantum efficiency is principally not limited. In this study, Powders of TPD, $Eu(TTA)_3(phen) and AlQ_3$ in a boat were subsequently heated to their sublimation temperatures to obtain the growth rates of 0.2~0.3nm/s. Organic electrolumnescent devices(OELD) with a structure of $glass substrate/ITO/Eu(TTA)_3(phen)/AI, glass substrate/ITO/TPD/Eu(TTA)_3(phen)/AI and glass substrate/ITO/TPD/Eu(TTA)_3(phen)/AIQ_3AI$ structures were fabricated by vacuum evaporation method, where aromatic diamine(TPD) was used as a hole transporting material, $Eu(TTA)_3(phen)$ as an emitting material, and Tris(8-hydroxyquinoline)Aluminum$(AlQ_3)$ as an electron transporting layer. Electroluminescent(EL) and current density-voltage(J-V) characteristics of these OELDs with various thickness of $Eu(TTA)_3(phen)$ layer were investigated. The triple-layer structure devices show the red EL spectrum at the wavelength of 613nm, which is almost the same as the photoluminescent(PL) spectrum of $Eu(TTA)_3(phen)$.It was found from the J-V characteristics of these devices that the current density is not dependent on the applied field, but on the electric field.
