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

该创新-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。该项目将提高对获得高效、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。该创新具有提高电池寿命和降低便携式电子设备（例如，手机、智能手表、平板电脑、头戴式耳机），这是通过降低显示器的功耗和提高其工作寿命来实现的。通过该项目的工作，原型OLED设备将被证明包含与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。该项目将培养两名高级光子材料科学和研究转化为商业原型的研究生。拟议的项目将把等离子体超颖表面集成到顶部发射磷光蓝色OLED器件的背面银阳极电极中，目的是展示与当前蓝色OLED相比具有上级稳定性和效率。OLED显示器中蓝光发射的低稳定性和低效率是OLED公司感兴趣解决的重要问题。所提出的技术使用等离子体超表面电极，与没有我们技术的相同材料相比，将高效蓝色磷光OLED材料的光稳定性提高了3.5倍。等离子体超颖表面加速蓝色OLED磷光体发射的复合速率，这通过使三重态湮灭事件最小化来改善光稳定性。此外，该技术将通过增加光提取来提高OLED效率，因为超颖表面减少了与OLED层内的引导等离子体和光子模式的耦合。这个PFI-TT项目将使包含等离子体元阵列的原型设备能够在最先进的顶部发射OLED设备架构中得到展示。顶发光器件架构对于开发下一代OLED显示器的公司来说尤其重要，因为与底发光OLED相比，顶发光器件具有更好的色彩质量，并且可以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知识价值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.