Polymer electrophosphorescent devices utilizing a ladder-type poly(para-phenylene) host

The properties of light-emitting diodes based on the electrophorescent platinum-porphyrin dye PtOEP blended into a ladder-type poly(para-phenylene) (LPPP) polymer host are presented. Due to the small difference between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) levels of the guest and the host, the operating voltage of single layer devices is almost independent of the dopant concentration in clear contrast to what has been observed in the case of wide-band gap host polymers. However, the efficiency and the color purity of these single-layer devices is quite poor, which can be attributed to the weak trapping of carriers on the phosphorescent dye. Incorporating an electron-transporting/hole-blocking layer greatly increases the efficiency of the devices but at the same time emission from the host becomes more significant. Adding a hole-transporting/electron-blocking layer further increases the efficiency of the devices. Pure red emission is, however, only obtained if the HOMO of the hole-transporting layer is well above that of the LPPP host. This effect is interpreted in terms of a direct injection of holes from the hole-transporting layer into the HOMO level of the dopant. Further, prompt fluorescence and phosphorescence studies indicate that energy transfer from LPPP singlet excitons contributes to the emission from the dopant, but that the efficiency of singlet exciton transfer is too small to explain the almost complete absence of host emission in the electroluminescence spectra of single- and three-layer devices. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.