Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are a promising technology for flat-panel displays and area illumination lamps. The technology relies upon thin-film layers of materials coated upon a substrate and employing a cover affixed to the substrate around the periphery of the OLED device. The thin-film layers of materials can include, for example, organic materials, electrodes, conductors, and silicon electronic components as are known and taught in the OLED art. The cover includes a cavity to avoid contacting the cover to the thin-film layers of materials when the cover is affixed to the substrate.
OLED devices generally can have two formats known as small molecule devices such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,292 and polymer OLED devices such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,190. Either type of OLED device may include, in sequence, an anode, an organic EL element, and a cathode. The organic EL element disposed between the anode and the cathode commonly includes an organic hole-transporting layer (HTL), an emissive layer (EML) and an organic electron-transporting layer (ETL). Holes and electrons recombine and emit light in the EML layer. Tang et al. (Appl. Phys. Lett., 51, 913 (1987), Journal of Applied Physics, 65, 3610 (1989), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,292) demonstrated highly efficient OLEDs using such a layer structure. Since then, numerous OLEDs with alternative layer structures, including polymeric materials, have been disclosed and device performance has been improved.
Light is generated in an OLED device when electrons and holes that are injected from the cathode and anode, respectively, flow through the electron transport layer and the hole transport layer and recombine in the emissive layer. Many factors determine the efficiency of this light generating process. For example, the selection of anode and cathode materials can determine how efficiently the electrons and holes are injected into the device; the selection of ETL and HTL can determine how efficiently the electrons and holes are transported in the device, and the selection of EML can determine how efficiently the electrons and holes be recombined and result in the emission of light, etc. It has been found, however, that one of the key factors that limits the efficiency of OLED devices is the inefficiency in extracting the photons generated by the electron-hole recombination out of the OLED devices. Due to the high optical indices of the organic materials used, most of the photons generated by the recombination process are actually trapped in the devices due to total internal reflection. These trapped photons never leave the OLED devices and make no contribution to the light output from these devices.
A typical OLED device uses a glass substrate, a transparent conducting anode such as indium-tin-oxide (ITO), a stack of organic layers, and a reflective cathode layer. Light generated from the device is emitted through the glass substrate. This is commonly referred to as a bottom-emitting device. Alternatively, a device can include a substrate, a reflective anode, a stack of organic layers, and a top transparent cathode layer. Light generated from the device is emitted through the top transparent electrode. This is commonly referred to as a top-emitting device. In these typical devices, the index of the ITO layer, the organic layers, and the glass is about 2.0, 1.7, and 1.5 respectively. It has been estimated that nearly 60% of the generated light is trapped by internal reflection in the ITO/organic EL element, 20% is trapped in the glass substrate, and only about 20% of the generated light is actually emitted from the device and performs useful functions.
Referring to FIG. 2, an OLED device as taught in the prior art includes a substrate 10 on which are formed thin-film electronic components 20, for example conductors, thin-film transistors, and capacitors in an active-matrix device or conductors in a passive-matrix device. The thin-film electronic components 20 can cover a portion of the substrate 10 or the entire substrate 10, depending on the OLED device design. Over the substrate 10 are formed one or more first electrode(s) 14. One or more layers of organic materials 16 are formed over the first electrode(s) 14, at least one layer of which is light emitting. One or more second electrode(s) 18 are formed over the layers of organic materials 16. A cover 12 with a cavity forming a gap 32 to avoid contacting the thin-film layers 14, 16, 18, 20 is affixed to the substrate 10. In some designs, it is proposed to fill the gap 32 with a curable polymer or resin material to provide additional rigidity. The second electrode(s) 18 may be continuous over the surface of the OLED. Upon the application of a voltage across the first and second electrodes 14 and 18 provided by the thin-film electronic components 20, a current can flow through the organic material layers 16 to cause one of the organic layers to emit light 50a through the cover 12 (if it, any material in the gap 32, and the second electrode 18 are transparent) or to emit light 50b through the substrate 10 (if it and the first electrode 14 are transparent). If light is emitted through the substrate 10 it is a bottom-emitter OLED and the thin-film electronic components 20 may occlude some of the light 50b emitted or may limit the emission area to the area 26 between the thin-film electronic components 20, thereby reducing the aperture ratio of the OLED device. If light is emitted through the cover 12 the OLED device is a top-emitter and the thin-film electronic components 20. The arrangement used in FIG. 2 is typically a bottom emitter configuration with a thick, highly conductive, reflective electrode 18 and suffers from a reduced aperture ratio. Referring to FIG. 3, a top-emitter configuration can locate a first electrode 14 partially over the thin-film electronic components 20 thereby increasing the amount of light-emitting area 26. Since, in this top-emitter case, the first electrode 14 does not transmit light, it can be thick, opaque, and highly conductive. However, the second electrode must then be transparent.
In commercial practice, the substrate and cover have comprised 0.7 mm thick glass, for example as employed in the Eastman Kodak Company LS633 digital camera. For relatively small devices, for example less than five inches in diagonal, the use of a cavity in a cover 12 is an effective means of providing relatively rigid protection to the thin-film layers of materials 16. However, for very large devices, the substrate 10 or cover 12, even when composed of rigid materials like glass and employing materials in the gap 32, can bend slightly and cause the inside of the cover 12 or gap materials to contact or press upon the thin-film layers of materials 16, possibly damaging them and reducing the utility of the OLED device.
It is known to employ spacer elements to separate thin sheets of materials. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,204 B1 entitled “Organic electroluminescent device” describes the use of spacers to control the height of a sealing sheet above a substrate. Such an application does not, however, provide protection to thin-film layers of materials in an OLED device. US20040027327 A1 entitled “Components and methods for use in electro-optic displays” published Feb. 12, 2004 describes the use of spacer beads introduced between a backplane and a front plane laminate to prevent extrusion of a sealing material when laminating the backplane to the front plane of a flexible display. However, in this design, any thin-film layers of materials are not protected when the cover is stressed. Moreover, the sealing material will reduce the transparency of the device and requires additional manufacturing steps.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,821,828 B2 entitled “Method of manufacturing a semiconductor device” granted Nov. 23, 2004 describes an organic resin film such as an acrylic resin film patterned to form columnar spacers in desired positions in order to keep two substrates apart. The gap between the substrates is filled with liquid crystal materials. The columnar spacers may be replaced by spherical spacers sprayed onto the entire surface of the substrate. However, columnar spacers are formed lithographically and require complex processing steps and expensive materials. Moreover, this design is applied to liquid crystal devices and does not provide protection to thin-film structures deposited on a substrate.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,551,440 B2 entitled “Method of manufacturing color electroluminescent display apparatus and method of bonding light-transmitting substrates” granted Apr. 22, 2003. In this invention, a spacer of a predetermined grain diameter is interposed between substrates to maintain a predetermined distance between the substrates. When a sealing resin deposited between the substrates spreads, surface tension draws the substrates together. The substrates are prevented from being in absolute contact by interposing the spacer between the substrates, so that the resin can smoothly be spread between the substrates. This design does not provide protection to thin-film structures deposited on a substrate.
The use of cured resins is also optically problematic for top-emitting OLED devices. As is well known, a significant portion of the light emitted by an OLED may be trapped in the OLED layers, substrate, or cover. By filling the gap with a resin or polymer material, this problem may be exacerbated. Referring to FIG. 6, a prior-art bottom-emitting OLED has a transparent substrate 10, a transparent first electrode 14, one or more layers 16 of organic material, one of which is light-emitting, a reflective second electrode 18, a gap 32 and an encapsulating cover 12. The encapsulating cover 12 may be opaque and may be coated directly over the second electrode 18 so that no gap 32 exists. When a gap 32 does exist, it may be filled with polymer or desiccants to add rigidity and reduce water vapor permeation into the device. Light emitted from one of the organic material layers 16 can be emitted directly out of the device, through the substrate 10, as illustrated with light ray 1. Light may also be emitted and internally guided in the substrate 10 and organic layers 16, as illustrated with light ray 2. Alternatively, light may be emitted and internally guided in the layers 16 of organic material, as illustrated with light ray 3. Light rays 4 emitted toward the reflective second electrode 18 are reflected by the reflective second electrode 18 toward the substrate 10 and then follow one of the light ray paths 1, 2, or 3.
A variety of techniques have been proposed to improve the out-coupling of light from thin-film light emitting devices. For example, diffraction gratings have been proposed to control the attributes of light emission from thin polymer films by inducing Bragg scattering of light that is guided laterally through the emissive layers; see “Modification of polymer light emission by lateral microstructure” by Safonov et al., Synthetic Metals 116, 2001, pp. 145-148, and “Bragg scattering from periodically microstructured light emitting diodes” by Lupton et al., Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 77, No. 21, Nov. 20, 2000, pp. 3340-3342. Brightness enhancement films having diffractive properties and surface and volume diffusers are described in WO0237568 A1 entitled “Brightness and Contrast Enhancement of Direct View Emissive Displays” by Chou et al., published May 10, 2002. The use of micro-cavity techniques is also known; for example, see “Sharply directed emission in organic electroluminescent diodes with an optical-microcavity structure” by Tsutsui et al., Applied Physics Letters 65, No. 15, Oct. 10, 1994, pp. 1868-1870. However, none of these approaches cause all, or nearly all, of the light produced to be emitted from the device. Moreover, such diffractive techniques cause a significant frequency dependence on the angle of emission so that the color of the light emitted from the device changes with the viewer's perspective.
Reflective structures surrounding a light-emitting area or pixel are referenced in U.S. Pat. No. 5,834,893 issued Nov. 10, 1998 to Bulovic et al. and describe the use of angled or slanted reflective walls at the edge of each pixel. Similarly, Forrest et al. describe pixels with slanted walls in U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,195 issued Jul. 18, 2000. These approaches use reflectors located at the edges of the light emitting areas. However, considerable light is still lost through absorption of the light as it travels laterally through the layers parallel to the substrate within a single pixel or light emitting area.
Scattering techniques are also known. Chou (International Publication Number WO 02/37580 A1) and Liu et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2001/0026124 A1) taught the use of a volume or surface scattering layer to improve light extraction. The scattering layer is applied next to the organic layers or on the outside surface of the glass substrate and has an optical index that matches these layers. Light emitted from the OLED device at higher than the critical angle that would have otherwise been trapped can penetrate into the scattering layer and be scattered out of the device. The efficiency of the OLED device is thereby improved but still has deficiencies as explained below.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,787,796 entitled “Organic electroluminescent display device and method of manufacturing the same” by Do et al issued Sep. 7, 2004 describes an organic electroluminescent (EL) display device and a method of manufacturing the same. The organic EL device includes a substrate layer, a first electrode layer formed on the substrate layer, an organic layer formed on the first electrode layer, and a second electrode layer formed on the organic layer, wherein a light loss preventing layer having different refractive index areas is formed between layers of the organic EL device having a large difference in refractive index among the respective layers. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0217702 entitled “Light extracting designs for organic light emitting diodes” by Garner et al., similarly discloses use of microstructures to provide internal refractive index variations or internal or surface physical variations that function to perturb the propagation of internal waveguide modes within an OLED. When employed in a top-emitter embodiment, the use of an index-matched polymer adjacent the encapsulating cover is disclosed.
However, scattering techniques, by themselves, cause light to pass through the light-absorbing material layers multiple times where they are absorbed and converted to heat. Moreover, trapped light may propagate a considerable distance horizontally through the cover, substrate, or organic layers before being scattered out of the device, thereby reducing the sharpness of the device in pixellated applications such as displays. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 7, a prior-art pixellated bottom-emitting OLED device may include a plurality of independently controlled pixels 60, 62, 64, 66, and 68 and a scattering element 21, typically formed in a layer, located between the transparent first electrode 12 and the substrate 10. A light ray 5 emitted from the light-emitting layer may be scattered multiple times by light scattering element 21, while traveling through the substrate 10, organic layer(s) 16, and transparent first electrode 14 before it is emitted from the device. When the light ray 5 is finally emitted from the device, the light ray 5 has traveled a considerable distance through the various device layers from the original pixel 60 location where it originated to a remote pixel 68 where it is emitted, thus reducing sharpness. Most of the lateral travel occurs in the substrate 10, because that is by far the thickest layer in the package. Also, the amount of light emitted is reduced due to absorption of light in the various layers. If the light scattering layer is alternatively placed adjacent to a transparent encapsulating cover of a top-emitting device as illustrated in FIG. 8, the light may similarly travel a significant distance in the encapsulating cover 12 before being emitted.
Light-scattering layers used externally to an OLED device are described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0018431 entitled “Organic electroluminescent devices having improved light extraction” by Shiang and U.S. Pat. No. 5,955,837 entitled “System with an active layer of a medium having light-scattering properties for flat-panel display devices” by Horikx, et al. These disclosures describe and define properties of scattering layers located on a substrate in detail. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 6,777,871 entitled “Organic ElectroLuminescent Devices with Enhanced Light Extraction” by Duggal et al., describes the use of an output coupler comprising a composite layer having specific refractive indices and scattering properties. While useful for extracting light, this approach will only extract light that propagates in the substrate (illustrated with light ray 2) and will not extract light that propagates through the organic layers and electrodes (illustrated with light ray 3). Moreover, if applied to display devices, this structure will decrease the perceived sharpness of the display. Referring to FIG. 9, the sharpness of an active-matrix OLED device employing a light-scattering layer coated on the substrate is illustrated. The average MTF (sharpness) of the device (in both horizontal and vertical directions) is plotted for an OLED device with the light-scattering layer and without the light scattering layer. As is shown, the device with the light-scattering layer is much less sharp than the device without the light scattering layer, although more light was extracted (not shown) from the OLED device with the light-scattering layer.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0061136 entitled “Organic light emitting device having enhanced light extraction efficiency” by Tyan et al., describes an enhanced light extraction OLED device that includes a light scattering layer. In certain embodiments, a low-index isolation layer (having an optical index substantially lower than that of the organic electroluminescent element) is employed adjacent to a reflective layer in combination with the light scattering layer to prevent low angle light from striking the reflective layer, and thereby minimize absorption losses due to multiple reflections from the reflective layer. The particular arrangements, however, may still result in reduced sharpness of the device.
There is a need therefore for an improved OLED device structure that that avoids the problems noted above and improves the robustness and performance of the device and reduces manufacturing costs.