Driving voltage reduction in white organic light-emitting devices from selectively doping in ambipolar blue-emitting layer

White organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) consisting of ambipolar 9,10-bis(2(')-naphthyl) anthracene (ADN) as a host of blue-emitting layer (EML) were investigated. A thin codoped layer of yellow 5,6,11,12-Tetraphenylnaphthacene (rubrene) served as a probe for detecting the position of maximum recombination rate in the 4,4(')-bis[2-(4-(N,N-diphenylamino)phenyl)vinyl]biphenyl (DPAVBi) doped-ADN EML. Due to the energy barrier and bipolar carrier transport, the maximum recombination rate was found to be close to but not exactly at the interface of the hole-transporting layer and the EML. With appropriate tuning in the thickness, position, and dopant concentrations of the codoped layer (rubrene:DPAVBi:ADN) in the EML, the device driving voltage decreased by 21.7%, nearly 2 V in reduction, due to the increased recombination current from the faster exciton relaxation induced by the yellow dopants. Among the advantages of introducing the codoped layer over conventional single-doped layers are the elimination of the trapping effect to avoid increasing the device driving voltage, the alleviation of the dependence of the recombination zone on the applied voltage for improving color stability, and the utilization of excitons in a more efficient way to enhance device efficiency. Without using any electrically conductive layers such as the p-i-n structure, we were able to successfully generate 112 cd/m(2) at 4 V from our white OLED simply by engineering the structure of the EML.(C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.