High-efficiency top-emitting organic light-emitting diodes based on metal/ITO composite electrodes

High-performance top-emitting organic light-emitting diodes (TEOLEDs) integrating the metal/ITO composite anodes were developed. The results revealed that covering the surface of Al anode with ITO layer could effectively improve the charge injection efficiency and balance the hole-electron charge. The effect of the thickness of ITO on the performance of TEOLEDs with Al/ITO anodes was further studied. The TEOLEDs with Al/ITO (5 nm) anode showed optimized performance, with the current efficiency (CE) and external quantum efficiency (EQE) enhanced by 40.0% and 34.5% compared to that of the OELD with pure Al anode, and increased by 93.1% and 33.5% compared to that of bottom-emitting OLEDs. In addition, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) was narrowed to 36 nm due to the micro-cavity effect of the top-emitting structure and the turn-on voltage decreased to as low as 2.3 V owing to the efficient charge injection and well-matched energy level. In addition, TEOLEDs using Ag/ITO as anode exhibited a slow roll-off of CE and EQE and a narrower FWHM of 30 nm, greatly improving the color purity. The strategy is simple and can significantly improve the efficiency of the TEOLEDs, which promotes the applications of OLEDs in the fields of ultra-high-definition displays and micro-displays.