Operating organic light-emitting diodes imaged by super-resolution spectroscopy

King, John T.; Granick, Steve

doi:10.1038/ncomms11691

Title: Operating organic light-emitting diodes imaged by super-resolution spectroscopy

Journal Article · Tue Jun 21 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11691· OSTI ID:1252188

King, John T. ^[1]; Granick, Steve ^[2]

Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)
IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter, UNIST, Ulsan (South Korea)

Super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is adapted here for materials characterization that would not otherwise be possible. With the example of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), spectral imaging with pixel-by-pixel wavelength discrimination allows us to resolve local-chain environment encoded in the spectral response of the semi-conducting polymer, and correlate chain packing with local electroluminescence by using externally applied current as the excitation source. We observe nanoscopic defects that would be unresolvable by traditional microscopy. They are revealed in electroluminescence maps in operating OLEDs with 50 nm spatial resolution. We find that brightest emission comes from regions with more densely packed chains. Conventional microscopy of an operating OLED would lack the resolution needed to discriminate these features, while traditional methods to resolve nanoscale features generally cannot be performed when the device is operating. As a result, this points the way towards real-time analysis of materials design principles in devices as they actually operate.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Contributing Organization:: Institute for Basic Science

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-02ER46019

OSTI ID:: 1252188

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1287272

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 7; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 7 works

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Reflection confocal nanoscopy using a super-oscillatory lens Nagarajan, Arvind; Stoevelaar, L. Pjotr; Silvestri, Fabrizio Optics Express, Vol. 27, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.27.020012	journal	January 2019
Reflection confocal nanoscopy using a super-oscillatory lens Nagarajan, Arvind; Stoevelaar, L. Pjotr; Silvestri, Fabrizio arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1903.09248	text	January 2019

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30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
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Title: Operating organic light-emitting diodes imaged by super-resolution spectroscopy

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