PINOLEDs - Improved structures and materials to enhance device lifetime and ease mass production

Currently, three issues are identified that decide upon the commercial success of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), both in display and lighting applications: power efficiency, lifetime, and price competitiveness. PIN OLEDs are widely seen as the preferred way to maximum power efficiency. Here, we report that this concept also delivers the world longest lifetimes. For a highly efficient deep red PIN OLED, a half lifetime of 25, 000 hours for a starting brightness of 10,000 cd/m(2) and a minimal voltage increase over lifetime is reported. This value corresponds to more than I Million hours at 500 cd/m(2),12 assuming a rather low exponent of n = 1.3 only. Since there is no initial luminance drop, these PIN OLEDs also exhibit a very high 80% lifetime (250,000 hours at 500 cd/m(2)). In the following, new record lifetime values for blue and green will be reported. Additionally, further topics that have impact on the production yield and cost such as newly developed materials and top emitting structures will be discussed.