Determination of the trap-assisted recombination strength in polymer light emitting diodes

The recombination processes in poly(p-phenylene vinylene) based polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) are investigated. Photogenerated current measurements on PLED device structures reveal that next to the known Langevin recombination also trap-assisted recombination is an important recombination channel in PLEDs, which has not been considered until now. The dependence of the open-circuit voltage on light intensity enables us to determine the strength of this process. Numerical modeling of the current-voltage characteristics incorporating both Langevin and trap-assisted recombination yields a correct and consistent description of the PLED, without the traditional correction of the Langevin prefactor. At low bias voltage the trap-assisted recombination rate is found to be dominant over the free carrier recombination rate.

Asymmetric electron and hole transport in a high-mobility n-type conjugated polymer

Electron- and hole-transport properties of the n-type copolymer poly{[N,N'-bis(2-octyldodecyl)-naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]-alt-5,5'-(2,2'-dithiophene)} [P(NDI2OD-T2), PolyeraActivInkTM N2200] are investigated. Electron- and hole-only devices with Ohmic contacts are demonstrated, exhibiting trap-free space-charge-limited currents for both types of charge carriers. While hole and electron mobilities are frequently equal in organic semiconductors, room-temperature mobilities of 5 × 10−8 m2/Vs for electrons and 3.4 × 10−10 m2/Vs for holes are determined, both showing universal Arrhenius temperature scaling. The origin of the large difference between electron and hole mobility is explained by quantum-chemical calculations, which reveal that the internal reorganization energy for electrons is smaller than for holes, while the transfer integral is larger. As a result, electron transport is intrinsically superior to hole transport under the same injection and extraction conditions.