Investigating electrical aging phenomena in blue organic light emitting devices

近年来，人们对用于平板显示器应用的有机发光器件（OLED）的新兴技术产生了极大的兴趣。 与替代技术（例如液晶显示器或等离子体显示器）相比，OLED承诺更高的效率（因此更低的功耗）、更鲜艳的发射颜色（因此更好的图像质量）以及实现用于“可折叠”、“可卷曲”、“可穿戴”和“牢不可破”或加固型电子器件的机械柔性显示器的独特潜力（因此新产品和市场机会）。 然而，相对较差的器件稳定性，特别是蓝光OLED（与红光和绿光OLED一起，是全色显示器所必需的）的稳定性，限制了更广泛的技术商业化。开发更稳定的蓝色OLED对于扩大其应用范围至关重要，特别是在高附加值产品（例如笔记本电脑显示器）中。 然而，实现更稳定的蓝色OLED一直受到缺乏清晰的理解的潜在退化因素的阻碍。该研究旨在确定和理解蓝色OLED中EL退化背后的因素。 调查将继续沿着三个不同但互补的推力，将提供有用的信息，器件EL退化过程的不同方面。 这些推进利用了申请人从其先前关于绿色OLED的研究中开创的许多实验技术。 研究结果将对未来开发更稳定的蓝色OLED至关重要，这将与加拿大工业合作伙伴（例如加拿大显示器公司和相关部门的其他公司）合作进行。因此，它将在与其核心业务高度相关的领域（平板显示器行业）为这些合作伙伴提供竞争优势。 这项研究还将培训一批新的加拿大研究人员，他们将获得一种新兴技术的专门知识，这种技术有可能带来新产品和市场机会。

Recent years have witnessed an enormous interest in the emerging technology of organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) for flat panel display applications. Compared to alternative technologies (e.g. liquid crystal displays or plasma displays), OLEDs promise higher efficiency (hence lower power consumption), more vivid emission colors (hence better image quality), and a unique potential for realizing mechanically flexible displays for "foldable", "roll-able", "wearable" and "unbreakable" or ruggedized electronics (hence new products and market opportunities). However, the relatively poor device stability, especially that of blue-emitting OLEDs (which, alongside red and green-emitting OLEDs, are necessary for full color displays) limits wider technology commercialization. Developing more stable blue OLEDs is essential for expanding their range of applications, especially in high value-added products (e.g. laptop displays). However, the realization of more stable blue OLEDs has been hampered by the lack of a clear understanding of the underlying degradation factors. The proposed research aims at identifying and understanding the factors behind the EL degradation in blue OLEDs. The investigation will proceed along three distinct yet complementary thrusts that will provide useful information on different aspects of device EL degradation processes. The thrusts utilize a number of experimental techniques pioneered by the applicant from his previous studies on green OLEDs. The research results will be critical for future development of more stable blue OLEDs, which will be pursued in collaboration with Canadian industrial partners (e.g. Canadian displays companies and others in related sectors). It will, therefore, provide those partners with a competitive edge in an area of high relevance to their core business (flat panel displays industry). The research will also allow training of a new "breed" of Canadian researchers who will acquire expertise in an emerging technology that has the potential to enable new products and market opportunities.