Flexible organic light-emitting diodes with enhanced light out-coupling efficiency fabricated on a double-sided nanotextured substrate

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2014 Jul 9;6(13):10213-9. doi: 10.1021/am501521p. Epub 2014 Jun 20.

Abstract

High-efficiency organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have generated tremendous research interest. One of the exciting possibilities of OLEDs is the use of flexible plastic substrates, which unfortunately have a mismatching refractive index compared with the conventional ITO anode and the air. To unlock the light loss on flexible plastic, we report a high-efficiency flexible OLED directly fabricated on a double-sided nanotextured polycarbonate substrate by thermal nanoimprint lithography. The template for the nanoimprint process is a replicate from a silica arrayed with nanopillars and fabricated by ICP etching through a SiO2 colloidal spheres mask. It has been shown that with the internal quasi-periodical scattering gratings the efficiency enhancement can reach 50% for a green light OLED, and with an external antireflection structure, the normal transmittance is increased from 89% to 94% for paraboloid-like pillars. The OLED directly fabricated on the double-sided nanotextured polycarbonate substrate has reached an enhancing factor of ∼2.8 for the current efficiency.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't