Improvement of electron injection in inverted bottom-emission blue phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes using zinc oxide nanoparticles

We fabricated highly efficient iridium(III) bis[(4,6-di-fluorophenyl)-pyridinato-N,C2^'] picolinate doped inverted bottom-emission blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes, with an electron injection layer of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs). The ZnO NPs layer lowers the turn-on voltage by about 4 V and significantly enhances the efficiency. The device with ZnO NPs shows peak efficiencies of 16.5 cd/A and 8.2%, about three times higher than those of the device without ZnO NPs. Since the ZnO NPs layer has a wide band gap, good electron transporting properties and low work function, it can be utilized as an effective electron injection layer with good transparency.