• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.380-380
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• 2010

Currently, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have been proven of their readiness for commercialization in terms of lifetime and efficiency. In accordance with emerging new technologies, enhancement of light efficiency and extension of application fields are required. Particularly inverted structures, in which electron injection occurs at bottom and hole injection on top, show crucial advantages due to their easy integration with Si-based driving circuits for active matrix OLED as well as large open area for brighter illumination. In order to get better performance and process reliability, usually a proper buffer layer for carrier injection is needed. In inverted top emission OLED, the buffer layer should protect underlying organic materials against destructive particles during the electrode deposition, in addition to increasing their efficiency by reducing carrier injection barrier. For hole injection layers, there are several requirements for the buffer layer, such as high transparency, high work function, and reasonable electrical conductivity. As a buffer material, a few kinds of transition metal oxides for inverted OLED applications have been successfully utilized aiming at efficient hole injection properties. Among them, we chose 2 nm of $WO_3$ between NPB [N,N'-bis(1-naphthyl)-N,N'-diphenyl-1,1'-biphenyl-4,4'-diamine] and Au (or Al) films. The interfacial energy-level alignment and chemical reaction as a function of film coverage have been measured by using in-situ ultraviolet and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It turned out that the $WO_3$ interlayer substantially reduces the hole injection barrier irrespective of the kind of electrode metals. It also avoids direct chemical interaction between NPB and metal atoms. This observation clearly validates the use of $WO_3$ interlayer as hole injection for inverted OLED applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.379-379
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• 2010

Recent technical advances in OLEDs (organic light emitting devices) requires more and more the improvement in low operation voltage, long lifetime, and high luminance efficiency. Inverted top emission OLEDs (ITOLED) appeared to overcome these problems. This evolved to operate better luminance efficiency from conventional OLEDs. First, it has large open area so to be brighter than conventional OLEDs. Also easy integration is possible with Si-based driving circuits for active matrix OLED. But, a proper buffer layer for carrier injection is needed in order to get a good performance. The buffer layer protects underlying organic materials against destructive particles during the electrode deposition and improves their charge transport efficiency by reducing the charge injection barrier. Hexaazatriphenylene-hexacarbonitrile (HAT-CN), a discoid organic molecule, has been used successfully in tandem OLEDs due to its high workfunction more than 6.1 eV. And it has the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) level near to Fermi level. So it plays like a strong electron acceptor. In this experiment, we measured energy level alignment and hole current density on inverted OLED structures for hole injection. The normal film structure of Al/NPB/ITO showed bad characteristics while the HAT-CN insertion between Al and NPB greatly improved hole current density. The behavior can be explained by charge generation at the HAT-CN/NPB interface and gap state formation at Al/HAT-CN interface, respectively. This result indicates that a proper organic buffer layer can be successfully utilized to enhance hole injection efficiency even with low work function Al anode.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.16.2-16.2
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• 2006

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.118-120
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• 2009

We reported that the evidence of oxygen doping to copper-phthalocyanine (CuPc) by $O_2$-plasma treatment to Au electrode of inverted top emitting organic light emitting diodes (ITOLEDs). The operation voltage of OLEDs at 150 mA/$cm^2$ decreased from 16.1 to 10.3 V as oxygen atoms indiffued to CuPc layer using $O_2$-plasma. Synchrotron radiation photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that a new bond of Cu-O appeared and the energy difference between the highest occupied molecular orbital and $E_F$ is lowered by 0.20 eV after plasma treatment. Thus the hole injection barrier was lowered, reducing the turn-on voltage and increasing the quantum efficiency of OLEDs.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.69-72
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• 2020

In this study, the inverted structured electroluminescence (EL) devices were fabricated with double electron transport layers (ETLs). The conduction band minimum (CBM) of TiO₂ NPs is lower than SnO₂ NPs. Therefore, it is expected that inserting TiO₂ NPs between the SnO₂ layer and the emission layer (EML) will reduce the energy barrier and transport electrons smoothly. The quantum dot light emitting diodes (QLEDs) with double ETLs showed the enhanced emission characteristics than those with only SnO₂ layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.100-101
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• 2012

The plasma damage free and room temperature processedthin film deposition technology is essential for realization of various next generation organic microelectronic devices such as flexible AMOLED display, flexible OLED lighting, and organic photovoltaic cells because characteristics of fragile organic materials in the plasma process and low glass transition temperatures (Tg) of polymer substrate. In case of directly deposition of metal oxide thin films (including transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS)) on the organic layers, plasma damages against to the organic materials is fatal. This damage is believed to be originated mainly from high energy energetic particles during the sputtering process such as negative oxygen ions, reflected neutrals by reflection of plasma background gas at the target surface, sputtered atoms, bulk plasma ions, and secondary electrons. To solve this problem, we developed the NBAS (Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering) process as a plasma damage free and room temperature processed sputtering technology. As a result, electro-optical properties of NBAS processed ITO thin film showed resistivity of $4.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}m$ and high transmittance (>90% at 550 nm) with nano- crystalline structure at room temperature process. Furthermore, in the experiment result of directly deposition of TCO top anode on the inverted structure OLED cell, it is verified that NBAS TCO deposition process does not damages to the underlying organic layers. In case of deposition of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film on the plastic polymer substrate, the room temperature processed sputtering coating of high quality TCO thin film is required. During the sputtering process with higher density plasma, the energetic particles contribute self supplying of activation & crystallization energy without any additional heating and post-annealing and forminga high quality TCO thin film. However, negative oxygen ions which generated from sputteringtarget surface by electron attachment are accelerated to high energy by induced cathode self-bias. Thus the high energy negative oxygen ions can lead to critical physical bombardment damages to forming oxide thin film and this effect does not recover in room temperature process without post thermal annealing. To salve the inherent limitation of plasma sputtering, we have been developed the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process as the high quality oxide thin film deposition process at room temperature. The MFSS process is effectively eliminate or suppress the negative oxygen ions bombardment damage by the plasma limiter which composed permanent magnet array. As a result, electro-optical properties of MFSS processed ITO thin film (resistivity $3.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, transmittance 95% at 550 nm) have approachedthose of a high temperature DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) ITO thin film were. Also, AOS (a-IGZO) TFTs fabricated by MFSS process without higher temperature post annealing showed very comparable electrical performance with those by DMS process with $400^{\circ}C$ post annealing. They are important to note that the bombardment of a negative oxygen ion which is accelerated by dc self-bias during rf sputtering could degrade the electrical performance of ITO electrodes and a-IGZO TFTs. Finally, we found that reduction of damage from the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment drives improvement of crystalline structure in the ITO thin film and suppression of the sub-gab states in a-IGZO semiconductor thin film. For realization of organic flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates, gas barrier coatings are required to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency flexible AMOLEDs needs an extremely low water vapor transition rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$. The key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required (under ${\sim}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$) is the suppression of nano-sized defect sites and gas diffusion pathways among the grain boundaries. For formation of high quality single inorganic gas barrier layer, we developed high density nano-structured Al2O3 single gas barrier layer usinga NBAS process. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to a nano- crystalline phase with various grain sizes in a single inorganic thin film. As a result, the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film have improved order of magnitude compared with that of conventional $Al_2O_3$ layers made by the RF magnetron sputteringprocess under the same sputtering conditions; the WVTR of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film was about $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ by just single layer.