Property change of organic light-emitting diodes due to a SAM treatment of the ITO surface

ITO 표면의 SAM형 습식 개질에 의한 유기 발광 소자의 특성 변화

We have studied a property change of organic light-emitting diodes (OLED)s due to a surface reformation of indium-tin-oxide(ITO) substrate. An ITO is widely used as a transparent electrode in light-emitting diodes, and the OLEDs device performance is sensitive to the surface properties of the ITO. The ITO surface reformation could reduce the Schottky barrier at the ITO/organic interface and increase the adhesion of the organic layer onto the electrode. We have studied the characteristics of OLEDs with a treatment by a wet processing of the ITO substrate. The self-assembled monolayer(SAM) was used for wet processing. The characteristics of OLEDs were improved by SAM treatment of an ITO in this work. The OLEDs with a structure of ITO/TPD(50nm)/$Alq_3$(70nm)/LiF(0.5nm)/Al(100nm) were fabricated, and the surface properties of ITO were investigated by using seneral characterization techniques. Self-assembled monolayer introduced at the anode/organic interface gave an improvement in turn-on voltage, luminance and external quantum efficiency compared to the device without the SAM layer. SAM-treatment time of the ITO substrate was made to be 0/10/15/20/25min. The current efficiency of the device with 15min. treated SAM layer was increased by 3 times and the external quantum efficiency by 2.6 times.