| Increasing the efficiency and durability of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has attracted attention recently due to their prospective wide-spread use as flat-panel displays. The performance and efficiency of OLEDs is understood to be critically dependent on the quality of the device heterojunctions, and on matching the ionization potentials (IP) and the electron affinities (EA) of the luminescent material (LM) with those of the hole (HTA) and electron (ETA) transport agents, respectively. The color and bandwidth of OLED emission color is thought to reflect the packing of the molecules in the luminescent layer. Finally, materials stability under OLED operating conditions is a significant concern.; LM, HTA, and ETA thin films were grown in ultra-high vacuum using the molecular beam epitaxy technique. Thin film structure was determined in situ using reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and ex situ using UV-Vis spectroscopy. LM, HTA, and ETA occupied frontier orbitals (IP) were characterized by ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), and their unoccupied frontier orbitals (EA) estimated from UV-Vis and fluorescence spectroscopies in combination with the UPS results. The stability of the molecules toward vacuum deposition was verified by compositional analysis of thin film X-ray photoelectron spectra. The stability of these materials toward redox processes was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry in nonaqueous media. Electrochemical data provide a more accurate estimation of the EA since the energetics for addition of an electron to a neutral molecule can be probed directly.; The energetic barriers to charge injection into each layer of the device has been correlated to OLED turn-on voltage, indicating that these measurements may be used to screen potential combinations of materials for OLEDs. The chemical reversibility of LM voltammetry appears to limit the performance and lifetimes of solid-state OLEDs due to degradation of the organic layers. The role of oxygen as an electron trap in OLEDs has also been verified electrochemically. Finally, a more accurate determination of the offset of the occupied energy levels at the interface between two organic layers has been achieved via in situ monitoring of the UPS spectrum during heterojunction formation. |
