Charge carrier trapping and enhanced electroluminescent efficiency of blue light emitting polymer with gold nanoparticles

We investigated the current injection, transport, and luminous efficiency behavior of organic light emitting diode (OLED) containing the 5-10 nm-sized gold particles mixed in the polyfluorene-type copolymer. This nanoparticle-conjugated polymer mixture layer was used as hole injection, transport, and light emitting layer for various structures of OLED based on the phosphorescent and fluorescent emitters. Due to the hole trapping at the nanopaticle, carrier injection is significantly reduced while the hole transport behavior is found to be barely affected. Hole trapping of nanoparticle in light emitting layer (at 4.7∼9.4x 10 _-5 w/w fraction) resulted in an enhancement of efficiency (from 5.23 cd/A to 6.50 cd/A). The existence of the outcoupling effect also supports the carrier trapping behavior, which is amended mechanism of the improved efficiency compared to previously reported mechanism of enhanced photoluminescent stability by a hindrance of photo-oxidation.