Resonance layers are extremely useful elements in organic light emitting diode (OLED) emission stacks. They are critical in enabling the high performance of these displays.
A need exists for a design criterion for resonance layers that ensures low color shifts and high white point efficiency.
A computer-implemented method of designing an OLED device having a resonance layer includes calculating the reflectance of red, green, and blue spectrums of the OLED device to generate, respectively, red, green, and blue reflectance values. The method also includes selecting a thickness of the resonance layer such that the red, green, and blue reflectance values are substantially equal to one another or within a particular deviation of one another.
An OLED device, designed according to the method, includes components arranged in the following order: a substrate; a first electrode; an emissive layer; a second electrode; a resonance layer; and an encapsulant layer. The resonance layer has a thickness such that red, green, and blue reflectances of the OLED device are substantially equal to one another or within a particular deviation of one another.
The accompanying drawings are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification and, together with the description, explain the advantages and principles of the invention. In the drawings,
Embodiments include a specification for red, green, and blue strong cavity OLED devices in an RGB (red-green-blue) display, differing only in the emissive and hole-transport layer components of their cavities, whose common resonance layers diminish differences in the normal-incidence reflectance from within the cavity of the transflective-electrode/resonance-layers/TFE (thin-film encapsulent)-inorganic structure at red, green, and blue wavelengths.
Resonance layers selected according to this specification result in displays exhibiting exceptionally low off-axis color shift and usually also exceptionally high white point efficiency.
A subject OLED construction, including one or more common resonance layers in the indicated positions, is shown in
Evaluation of the Subject Reflectance (Rtrns(λ)), where trns is the Effective Reflectivity of Transflective Electrode
The subject reflectance can be evaluated using standard algorithms for the reflection of plane waves by a coherent multilayer structure embedded between two semi-infinite media. The steps in this process are:
This process is illustrated for the example device architecture, resonance layers, and characteristic wavelengths depicted in
The calculated red reflectance for the example system is depicted in
The maximum reflectance occurs when:
and
These physical origins of the observed reflectance are described for edification. They need not be known or used to perform the required evaluations of red, green, and blue reflectance.
The calculated green and blue reflectance are depicted in
While the general periodic pattern of high and low reflectance is similar to that of the red reflectance, it is compressed nearly equally in both the first and second resonance layer thickness dimensions. This is not primarily due to dielectric dispersion—the indices of all of the materials in the evaluations (except the transflective electrode) are not substantially different at red, green, and blue wavelengths. It is primarily due to the decrease in the free-space wavelength. The positions of the maxima along both the first and second resonance-layer thickness axes are diminished by the ratio
The transflective electrode in the present example exhibits significant dielectric dispersion between the red, green, and blue wavelengths. In the absence of resonance layers, the reflectance of this electrode is larger in the red than the green than the blue. While modulation due to the resonance layers occurs at all three wavelengths, it occurs about a lower mean value with decreasing wavelength.
The dielectric dispersion of the transflective electrode prohibits attaining equal red, green, and blue reflectance in the absence of resonance layers. The variations in reflectance induced by resonance layers, along with the compression of these with decreasing wavelength, recover the possibility of equal red, green, and blue reflectance.
Two example combinations of resonance layer thicknesses are selected to illustrate the impact of equal vs dramatically unequal Rtrns on performance. The average RGB reflectance is 0.24 at the combination labelled 1, and 0.29 at that labelled 2.
Approximate Device Emission from Rtrns(λ)
The spectral emission of a device into air is the product of the dopant emission spectrum and the device emissivity. A simple Fabry-Perot model can be used to approximate the wavelength dependence of the device emissivity:
Let λe denote the wavelength of peak emissivity for some θatr, δλ the full width at half max of the corresponding emissivity, and Δλ0 the shift of the peak wavelength corresponding to a change in angle Δθatr:
Both the width and the rate of migration of the peak emissivity with increasing θatr are directly proportional to λ0 and otherwise dependent upon only Rtrns or ncav. When the red, green, and blue values of Rtrns and ncav are the same, the approximate red, green, and blue device emissivities corresponding to a common fan of θatr are displaced replicas of one another when plotted on a logarithmic wavelength axis. This is illustrated in
Red, green, and blue dopant emission spectra often also exhibit a linear stretch with increasing wavelength that is suppressed by a logarithmic wavelength axis.
This means that when the red, green, and blue values of Rtrns are equal, the red, green, and blue device emission spectra will be approximate displaced replicas of one other when plotted on a logarithmic wavelength axis.
Non-spectral performance characteristics such as brightness and color are evaluated using integrals over wavelength of the device emission spectrum times an appropriate weighting function W(λ). The value of these can be visualized using spectra plotted on a logarithmic wavelength axis by weighting by λW(λ) as opposed to W(λ) and integrating as
∫dλW(λ) Device Emission(λ)=∫d ln λ(λW(λ)) Device Emission(ln λ)
The partitioning of unit total current between the red, green, and blue pixels is determined by the on-axis values of 1) the desired mixed color, 2) the primary colors, and 3) the color-mixing weights of the primaries. The current cannot change with changing view off axis. It is therefore critical to maintain both the same primary colors and the same relative values of the color mixing weights off axis as on.
The requirement for constant relative values of the mixing weights off axis is called color balance. The degree of balance is measured by plotting (Yt(θ)/yt (θ))/(Yt(0)/yt (0)) as a function of θ for each of the red, green, and blue primaries, and then evaluating the rms deviation between these curves over a range of angles extending to the largest off-axis angle at which low color shift is desired. Normally considered are angles 0→45° with this metric called the rms deviation from uniform balance.
The usual remaining degrees of freedom in RGB emission stack design, other than the thicknesses of the two resonance layers, are the optical thicknesses of the red, green, and blue cavities. These are usually adjusted by adjusting the thickness of the hole transport layer component.
For the sake of axial efficiency, the range of optical thicknesses considered should include and not extend too far from the wavelength of peak dopant emission. These wavelengths are 624 nm, 516 nm, and 456 nm for the example red, green, and blue dopants described above.
The color mixing weight Y/y (Y—brightness (cd/m2); y—chromaticity coordinate) is evaluated by integrating the device emission weighted by the sum of the tristimulus response functions W(λ)=X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ). If the red, green, and blue device emission spectra were exact displaced replicas on a logarithmic wavelength axis, and if λ(X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ)) were independent of wavelength, then the red, green, and blue color mixing weight decays would be identical for any red, green, and blue cavity optical thicknesses equal to a common multiple of 624, 516, and 456 nm. However, λ(X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ)) is not independent of wavelength.
Therefore, the role of the optical thickness optimization is to compensate for the local variations in λ(X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ)) near 624, 516, and 456 nm. Chosen to be considered are the ranges 594-634 nm for red, 506-546 nm for green, and 435-475 nm for blue.
The optimization is performed by evaluating the rms deviation from uniform balance for all possible combinations of red, green, and blue optical thicknesses chosen from the selected ranges resolved in 2-nm increments and choosing the combination with the minimum rms deviation. This is repeated for each of the 651 combinations of resonance layer thicknesses in the mapping. Approximately 6 million evaluations are needed. These can be accomplished in seconds to minutes of processing time (depending upon hardware) due to the analyticity of the Fabry-Perot approximation.
The minimum rms deviation values are depicted in the
The blue and red emission occur in regions of wavelength space where λ(X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ)) is increasing with increasing θatr. Green emission occurs where λ(X(λ))+Y(λ)+Z(λ)) is decreasing. Ideally the color mixing weight decays would be identical if λ(X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ)) were constant. Locally positive d(λ(X(λ)+Y(λ)+Z(λ)))/dθatr slows the mixing weight decay; locally negative values accelerate it. A slower decay is accelerated by increasingly crowding the short wavelength edge of the dopant emission spectrum with the device emissivity by thinning the cavity. (This hastens the eventual migration of the centroid of the device emission toward longer wavelengths with increasing θatr.) A faster decay is retarded by further removing the emissivity from the short wavelength edge by thickening the cavity. (This delays the migration.) That is exactly what the optimized cavity optical thicknesses do.
These physical origins of the observed optimal cavity optical thicknesses are described for edification. They need not be known or used to perform the required evaluations of optimal thicknesses which demonstrate the correlation between color balance and low rms deviation in RGB reflectance.
Columns 2 through 5 in Table 1 summarize the performance at Design Point 1. Columns 6 through 9 show these same metrics at Design Point 2. In each case, Rtrns is the reflectance of the transflective-electrode/resonance-layers/TFE-inorganic structure at 455 nm (blue), 515 nm (green), or 625 nm (red); the values ncavTcav are the optical thicknesses of the cavities optimized for uniform color balance; the values of Δu′v′0→45° are the maximum off-axis color shifts between 0 and 45 degrees; and the values of ncavTcav/λdopant are the optimized optical thicknesses relative to the peak wavelength of the dopant emission spectrum.
The red and green primary shifts and the rms deviation from uniform balance are much smaller for Design Point 1 than Design Point 2. The blue primary shift is comparable. Therefore anticipated are smaller (and for most colors much smaller) off-axis mixed color shifts for Design Point 1.
The most useful and broadly-accepted measure of device efficiency is the ratio of the brightness emitted on axis to the current density driving the device. This is called the axial efficiency and is usually quoted in Cd/A. No attempt has been made to estimate a known Rtrns and θatr-dependent scaling of the device emissivity which is critical to the value of the axial efficiency in this Fabry-Perot model. Therefore, no axial efficiencies are quoted in the table.
Three factors exert a strong influence upon the axial efficiency of primaries:
According to these considerations, the following might be expected:
One factor tends to dominate the axial efficiency of mixed colors—the separation in (x,y) color space from the blue primary. When emitting white, the blue pixels, by virtue of their low axial efficiency, often consume half of the total current. (his fraction increases further as the separation from blue decreases.) Therefore, the axial efficiency of white is strongly dependent upon the axial efficiency of blue. Therefore expected is a higher white axial efficiency for Design Point 1 than Design Point 2.
In practice, RGB emission stack design is usually accomplished using complex and essentially exact models subjected to computationally intense design optimization validated by experiment. These models account for numerous effects neglected by a Fabry-Perot approach. These include non-uniform index and absorption within the cavity, dependence upon the position of emission within this non-uniform space, effects of dipole orientation, the impacts of Purcell effects upon radiative decay rates, and the impacts of transmission through components of the stack above the inner TFE inorganic layer. Consider whether the benefits of substantially equal red, green, and blue Rtrns persist in the outputs of this rigorous design approach.
The top portion of Table 2 reproduces the Fabry-Perot results for comparison. The bottom summarizes the results of the rigorous design optimization.
For each of Design Points 1 and 2, the red, green, and blue hole transport layer thicknesses were selected to minimize the rms deviation from uniform balance. The resulting optimal values are 180, 136, and 105 nm for Design Point 1, and 188, 136, and 95 nm for Design Point 2. Then the off-axis color shifts and axial efficiencies were evaluated for these optimal thicknesses.
The columns labelled λ0 (θatr=0) indicate the peak wavelength of the axial emissivity. These values represent the same quantity as the values of ncavTcav in the Fabry-Perot model. The ratios λ0/λdopant are included parenthetically. The trends with changing color and design point are very similar to the Fabry-Perot results.
The relative and absolute values of the Fabry-Perot and rigorous primary shifts are similar for Design Points 1 and 2, as are the relative and absolute values of the rms deviation from uniform balance. And as anticipated, the white point shift for Design Point 1 is much smaller than that for Design Point 2.
The relative values of the red, green, blue, and white axial efficiencies for Design Points 1 and 2 are also as anticipated by the Fabry-Perot analysis.
So, the benefits of substantially equal red, green, and blue Rtrns do persist in the outputs of the rigorous approach.
It should be noted that while zero rms deviation from uniform balance and zero average primary shift ensure zero shift for any color, optimizing the hole transport layer thicknesses to achieve a minimum residual rms deviation and a corresponding small but finite average primary shift does not ensure the most desirable combination of small but finite primary and white point shifts and white axial efficiency. The rigorous design optimization offers several alternatives that might be preferred depending upon priorities. The point of the present invention is that all of these for Design Point 1 are vastly preferred to all of those for Design Point 2. In other words, the minimization of the differences in the red, green, and blue values of Rtrns identifies a small region within an immense design space of vastly superior overall performance.
The following are additional considerations for the disclosed method. Materials for the resonance layers can depend upon implementation of the method for a particular OLED device. When two resonance layers are used, the layers can have an index contrast with, for example, one layer having a high index of refraction and the other layer having a low index of refraction. The two resonance layers preferably have a substantial index contrast, or one layer can have a different index than the cathode or TFE. The thicknesses of the resonance layers can also depend upon implementation of the method for a particular OLED device and possibly manufacturing cost or considerations, although thinner layers are generally better. The design methodology can result in multiple good or acceptable points in the plot of thicknesses for two resonance layers as shown, for example, in
Selecting a thickness, and possibly material(s), of the resonance layer(s) such that the red, green, and blue reflectance values are substantially equal to one another can mean that the reflectance values are within 1% of another, or 5% of one another, or a percentage that is useful.
Selecting a thickness, and possibly material(s), of the resonance layer(s) such that the red, green, and blue reflectance values are within a particular deviation of one another can mean that the reflectance values are within 0.01 of one another, or 0.05 of one another, or a deviation that is useful.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/IB2020/057492 | 8/7/2020 | WO |
Number | Date | Country | |
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62885962 | Aug 2019 | US |