Thin-film encapsulation of organic light-emitting devices

Organic light-emitting devices (OLED) are extremely sensitive to moisture and oxygen. Without high-performance hermetic seals, the life of these devices is limited. Bottom-emitter OLEDs are commonly sealed using epoxy and cover glass with large amounts of desiccant. In top-emitter OLEDs the light pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2005-05, Vol.86 (22), p.223503-223503-3
Main Authors: Ghosh, A. P., Gerenser, L. J., Jarman, C. M., Fornalik, J. E.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Organic light-emitting devices (OLED) are extremely sensitive to moisture and oxygen. Without high-performance hermetic seals, the life of these devices is limited. Bottom-emitter OLEDs are commonly sealed using epoxy and cover glass with large amounts of desiccant. In top-emitter OLEDs the light passes through the cover glass on which the desiccant typically resides. Thus, transparent thin-film encapsulation without any desiccant is most desirable. This paper reports the results of a robust thin-film encapsulation method that utilizes a layer of aluminum oxide deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) process as the primary moisture barrier. More than 1000 h in 85°C and 85% RH testing has been observed without significant device degradation caused by moisture. Data corroborating this method's superiority over other physical deposition methods for OLED encapsulation are also presented.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.1929867