PFI-TT: Development of Blue Phosphorescent OLEDs with Improved Lifetime and Efficiency using Plasmonic Electrodes for Portable Displays

这一创新技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是提高便携式电子设备中使用的有机发光二极管(OLED)显示器的效率和使用寿命。该项目将加强对获得高效、耐用的蓝光OLED的障碍的科学和技术理解，并使用与当前OLED制造方法兼容的先进光子材料来解决这些问题。这项创新有可能通过降低显示器的功耗和延长其工作寿命来延长电池寿命并降低便携式电子设备(例如手机、智能手表、平板电脑、耳机)的使用成本。通过该项目的工作，将展示包含与OLED显示器制造商目前使用的芯片制造工艺兼容的新型电极的OLED设备原型。该项目将培训两名研究生，学习先进的光子材料科学，并将研究转化为商业原型。拟议的项目将把等离子体变表面集成到顶部发光蓝色OLED器件的背面银阳极中，目的是展示与目前的蓝色OLED相比更好的稳定性和效率。OLED显示屏中蓝色发光分量的稳定性和效率较低，是OLED厂商感兴趣解决的重大问题。这项拟议的技术使用等离子准表面电极，与不使用我们技术的相同材料相比，高效蓝色磷光OLED材料的光稳定性提高了3.5倍。等离子体亚表面加速了蓝色OLED发光的复合速率，从而通过最小化三重态湮没事件来提高光稳定性。此外，该技术将通过增加光提取来提高OLED的效率，因为超表面减少了与OLED层内的引导等离子体和光子模式的耦合。这一PFI-TT项目将使包含等离子体偏安全的原型设备能够在最先进的顶级发射OLED设备体系结构中得到展示。顶部发光器件架构对于开发下一代OLED显示器的公司尤其重要，因为与底部发光OLED相比，它具有更好的色彩质量，能够实现更小的像素和更密集的像素集成。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to improve the efficiency and operational lifetime of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays used in portable electronic devices. The project will enhance scientific and technological understanding of the barriers to obtaining efficient, durable blue light emitting OLEDs and address these issues using advanced photonic materials that are compatible with current OLED manufacturing methods. The innovation has the potential to improve the battery life and reduce the cost of use of portable electronic devices (e.g., cell phones, smart watches, tablets, headsets) by reducing the power consumption of the display and by improving its operational lifetime. Through the project work, prototype OLED devices will be demonstrated that contain novel electrodes that are compatible with chip manufacturing processes currently used by OLED display manufacturers. The project will train two graduate students in advanced photonic materials science and research translation to a commercial prototype.The proposed project will integrate plasmonic metasurfaces into the back silver anode electrode of top-emitting phosphorescent blue OLED devices with the aim of demonstrating superior stability and efficiency compared to current blue OLEDs. The low stability and efficiency of the blue component of light emission in OLED displays is a significant problem that OLED companies are interested in solving. The proposed technology, which uses plasmonic metasurface electrodes, increases the photostability of high-efficiency blue phosphorescent OLED materials by a factor of up to 3.5 compared to those same materials without our technology. The plasmonic metasurfaces accelerate the recombination rate of blue OLED phosphor emission, which improves photostability by minimizing triplet annihilation events. Additionally, the technology will improve OLED efficiency by increasing light extraction because the metasurfaces reduce coupling to guided plasmonic and photonic modes within the OLED layers. This PFI-TT project will enable prototype devices incorporating plasmonic metasuraces to be demonstrated in the state-of-the-art top-emitting OLED device architecture. The top-emitting device architecture is particularly important to companies developing the next generation of OLED displays, as it has better color quality and enables smaller pixels and denser pixel integration compared with bottom-emitting OLEDs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.