Researchers find that adding an ultra-thin metal layer can dramatically enhance the lifetime of tandem OLED devices
Researchers from South China University of Technology and Guangzhou New Vision Opto-Electronic have found that the lifetime and current efficiency of a tandem OLED device can be greatly improved by adding an ultra-thin Ytterbium (Yb) metal layer through the charge generation layer (CGL).
The experiments detail an ultra-thin Yb metal layer with low work function, high transmittance, and large atomic radii, added to a light-green tandem OLED devices. The new device exhibited a lifetime of 308 hours (T90) at an initial brightness of 10,000 cd/m2 - which is 362 times (!) longer than that of a similar device without the Yb layer (T90 = 0.85 hours). The lifetime of the same material in a single-layer configuration (not a tandem device) was 49 hours (T90).