ECE-391

OLED TECHNOLOGY
NAME :-Parla Surendra Mani Kumar BATCH:- O7
ENROLLMENT NUMBER:- 16116043 BRANCH:- ECE

Contents:-
1. INTRODUCTION

2. HISTORY

3. COMPONENTS

4. WORKING

5. DEVICE ARCHITECTURE

6. FEATURES AND ADVANTAGES

7. DISADVANTAGES

8. CONCLUSION

9. REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION:-
OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) are simple solid state devices comprised of very thin
films of organic compounds that is of 100 to 500 nanometres thick. These compounds have a
special property of emitting light when electricity is applied to it more like an LED. In a simple
single layer OLED the organic compounds are located between two electrodes in which one of
the two is transparent (which allows light to pass through it). This will result in a brighter and
crispy display with less power consumption than LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and LED (Light
Emitting Diodes).

Organic Light Emitting Diodes are used in television screens, mobile screens, monitor
displays. An LED functions without backlight and hence it can display deep black levels. So,
they can be thinner and lighter than LCD’s. They can also be used to make foldable mobile,
watches and computer displays. In low ambient light conditions like dark rooms OLED’s can
achieve higher contrast using LED backlight than LCD’s.

There are two main families of LED’s: One group based on polymers and the other
based on small molecules. There are six different types of OLED’s like AMOLED (Active Matrix
OLED), PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED), Foldable OLED, Top emitting OLED, Transparent
OLED and White OLED. Many companies like Samsung and LG have been intensely using
AMOLED displays in their respective mobile displays.

HISTORY:-

The discovery of electroluminescence in organic materials by A.Bernanose and co-

workers at the Nancy-University, France in the early 1850 is considered to be the stepping
stone of OLED. They applied high-voltage AC (alternating current) fields in air as medium to the
materials such as acridine orange (cationic dye) which is deposited on or dissolved in cellulose
thin films.

Martin Pope and his co-workers at New York University developed ohmic dark-
injecting electrode contacts to organic crystals in 1960. They found the threshold energies (work
functions) for the electrode contacts which inject holes and electrons. These contacts are the
basis for the charge injection in all modern OLED devices. They are the first group to show DC
electroluminescence in vacuum on the pure anthracene crystal at 400 V using small area silver
electrode in 1963. The mechanism was based on field accelerated electron excitation of
molecular fluorescence. In 1965 they proved that electroluminescence was even possible in the
absence of electric field in anthracene crystals due to recombination of electrons and holes. In
the mean while W. Helfrich and W. G. Schneider belonged to National Research Council,
Canada proved that recombination electroluminescence is possible using double injection. The
experiment was done for the first time in the single crystal of anthracene using hole and electron
injecting electrodes. In the same year Dow chemical researchers proposed and patented a
mechanism involving electronic excitation at the contacts between anthracene molecules and
the graphite particles.
 Figure-1

Later in the year 1975 Roger Partridge at the National Physical Laboratory in the
United Kingdom observed electroluminescence in polymer films. The device consisted of a film
of n-vinyl carbazole polymer up to 2.2 um thick located between two charge injecting electrodes.
It was published in 1983. Finally in the year 1987 first diode device was published at Eastman
Kodak by Ching W.Tang and Steven Van Slyke. This device is consisting of two-layer structure
with separate hole and electron transporting layers such that recombination and light emission
occurred in the middle of the organic layer. This resulted in a reduction in operating voltage and
improved efficiency and led to the current era of OLED research and device production.

COMPONENTS: -
The components in an OLED depends on the number of layers of the organic
material we use. There are single layer and also multi-layer OLED’s. The efficiency of the
device increases proportionally with the number of layers. The increase in layers also helps in
preventing the charges from being wasted after reaching the opposite electrode. The four basic
components that any type of OLED have are:

1.An Emissive Layer

2.A Conducting Layer

3.A Substrate

4.A Cathode and an Anode as terminals.

 Figure-2 Parts of OLED

WORKING :

In a typical OLED the organic materials are situated between the two electrodes
(Anode and Cathode) and all lying on the substrate. Due to the delocalization of the pi electrons
caused by the conjugation over all parts of organic materials they conduct electricity. These
materials are considered organic semiconductors as their conductivity range from insulators to
conductors. The highest occupied and lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals of organic
semiconductors are similar to the valence bands and conduction bands of inorganic
semiconductors.
The most basic polymer OLEDs consisted of a single organic layer. The first
light-emitting device synthesized by J. H. Burroughes was an example of this kind. It consists of
a single layer polymer of p-phenylene vinylene. However multilayer OLEDs can be fabricated
with two or more layers in order to improve efficiency and the conductive properties of the
device. To aid charge injection at electrodes and to block the charges from reaching the
opposite electrode and being wasted we can use different kinds of organic materials. Many
modern OLEDs incorporate a simple bilayer structure, which consists of a conductive layer and
an emissive layer.

In the operation of the device we apply a positive voltage to the anode with respect to
the cathode. Now the electrons flow from the cathode to anode across the circuit. The electrons
are injected into the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals near cathode and drawn from the
highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) at the anode. This can also be viewed as the
injection holes into the HOMO. The electrostatic force brings the electrons and the holes
together and they recombine in the emissive layer. As, in organic semiconductors holes are
more mobile than electrons. This recombination leads to the radiation of energy whose
frequency is in visible range. The frequency of the radiation depends on the band gap i.e. the
energy difference between the LUMO and HOMO.

Figure-3 Working of OLED

Indium tin oxide (ITO) is one of the commonly used anode material. It is transparent
i.e, allows light to pass through it. It has a high work function which promotes injection of holes
into the HOMO level of the organic layer. A typical conductive layer may consist of poly (3,4 –
ethylene dioxy thiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT: PSS) because it causes electrons to
become trapped at the PEDOT: PSS interface and in doing so it increases the rate of hole
injection into the active layer. Metals like barium and calcium have low work functions. Hence
they are often used as the cathode to promote the injection of electrons into LUMO of organic
layer. Since these metals are more reactive to avoid degradation a capping layer of aluminum is
used.

DEVICE ARCHITECTURE: -

There are many types of OLEDs but only PMOLED and AMOLED are discussed in the
report because they are widely used.

PASSIVE MATRIX OLED:-

PMOLED are particularly designed for small displays such digital clocks and automotive audio
applications. In PMOLEDs anode and cathodes are arranged as strips. Anodes are
perpendicular to cathodes. Each pixel is formed by the intersection of cathode and anode. The
organic layers are present between anode and cathode. Each pixel is activated by applying
voltage to a particular row and column of the respective pixel. PMOLEDs are cheaper as they
are manufactured easily at low costs. But they are power consuming. So, they are preferred
only in case of small displays.

ACTIVE MATRIX OLED:-

AMOLEDs are made using full cathodes, anodes and organic layers. Here the
anode layer overlays a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) array that forms the matrix. The TFT circuitry
determines which pixel to be on. In PMOLEDs the current is distributed across the rows but
here TFT array acts as a switching machinery to control the amount of current flow through
each pixel. The frame rate of PMOLEDs and AMOLEDs are equal but the former consumes
more power than the later. AMOLEDs play an important role where the device runs on battery
and power consumption is very important. So, AMOLEDs are highly used in high range mobile
phones, tablets and laptops etc.

Features and Advantages:

OLED’s offer many advantages over regular LCS’s and LED’s for large displays.

1. The organic layers of an OLED can be plastic. So, they are thinner, lighter and more
flexible than the crystalline layers used in an LED or LCD.

i. Figure -4 Foldable OLED by LG

2. As the light emitting layers of an OLED are lighter and thinner, the substrate of an OLED
can be flexible. So, flexible and foldable displays can be made from OLEDs which is
impossible using LEDs or LCDs.

3. It has deep black levels and high contrast ratio. The reason behind this is in LCD’s there
is a back light which is white and black light is produced by completely filtering the white
light and this leaves some white light in the black places. In OLED black light is
 produced by not emitting any light which leads to the better performance of OLED’s over
LCD’s.
4. As the organic layers of an OLED are much thinner than the corresponding inorganic
crystal layers of LCDs and LEDs, multiple layers of the conductive and emissive layers
of an OLED can be used. Generally, glass materials are used as a support in LEDs and
LCDs displays but glass absorbs some light. OLEDs do not require glass and hence
they are brighter than LCDs.
5. Wallpaper displays: As the OLEDs are plastic they can be made into larger sheets which
are thinner just like a wallpaper. These kind of displays are harder to make using LCDs
because they have a lot of components like filters, back panel, polarizers etc.
6. OLEDs have good viewing angles. They have fields of view, about 170 degrees. As
LCDs work on the principle of blocking light, inherently it offers viewing obstacle from
certain angles. OLEDs emit their own light, so they have a much wider viewing range.

Disadvantages:

 The organic material in the OLED is sensitive and more susceptible to water
damage.
 OLED are not so good in sun light as they emit their own light which is not effective
when compared to the backlight emitted by LCD’s.
 Screen Burning in Google pixel 2 : When we change the display we will see the
marks of previous screen. This issue is called as screen burning.
 At present manufacturing cost of OLEDs are a bit high but in the future they can be
manufactured at low costs.

Conclusion:

OLEDs have many advantages over both LEDs and LCDs.

OLEDs is a rapidly growing field and in the future OLEDs replace all the LCDs and LEDs
and lead to the development of new generation appliances like flexible mobile, watches
and rolling laptops etc. As the refresh rate of OLEDs is much higher than LCDs, a device
with OLED display could change information in almost real time. Video games can be
made more realistic without any frame drops and lags.

References:

1) IEEE OLED technology and displays by Srećko Kunić and Zoran Šego (2012)
2) OLED Displays Fundamentals and Applications by Takatoshi Tsujimura (2012)
3) Fast Voltage-Programmed Pixel Architecture for AMOLED Displays IEEE by Shahin J.
Ashtiani (2010).
4) Pope, M.; Kallmann, H. P; Magnante, P. (1963). "Electroluminescence in Organic
Crystals".
5) Kallmann, H.; Pope, M. (1960). "Positive Hole Injection into Organic Crystal.”