Improved Efficiency of Inverted Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Using Tin Dioxide Nanoparticles as an Electron Injection Layer

We demonstrated highly efficient inverted bottom-emission organic light-emitting diodes (IBOLEDs) using tin dioxide (SnO₂) nanoparticles (NPs) as an electron injection layer at the interface between the indium tin oxide (ITO) cathode and the organic electron transport layer. The SnO₂ NP layer can facilitate the electron injection since the conduction band energy level of SnO₂ NPs (−3.6 eV) is located between the work function of ITO (4.8 eV) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy level of typical electron transporting molecules (−2.5 to −3.5 eV). As a result, the IBOLEDs with the SnO₂ NPs exhibited a decrease of the driving voltage by 7 V at 1000 cd/m² compared to the device without SnO₂ NPs. They also showed a significantly enhanced luminous current efficiency of 51.1 cd/A (corresponds to the external quantum efficiency of 15.6%) at the same brightness, which is about two times higher values than that of the device without SnO₂ NPs. We also measured the angular dependence of irradiance and electroluminescence (EL) spectra in the devices with SnO₂ NPs and found that they had a nearly Lambertian emission profile and few shift in EL spectrum through the entire viewing angles, which are considered as remarkable and essential results for the application of OLEDs to display devices