Highly sensitive permeation measurements are crucial for the characterization and development of polymeric substrates for flexible display applications. In particular, organic light-emitting devices require substrates with extremely low permeation rates for water and oxygen. Here we demonstrate a concept for measuring ultralow permeation rates. The amount of oxidative degradation in a thin Ca sensor is monitored by in situ resistance measurements. The benefits of this technique are demonstrated for polyester foils with single- and double-sided barrier coatings. A sensitivity limit is imposed by the quality of the encapsulation. The resulting base line contribution to the water vapor transmission rate of a glass reference is below 10−6 g/m2 day at accelerated test conditions.

Organic light-emitting diodes were fabricated on a 125-μm-thick polyethylene terephthalate substrate covered with 100 nm indium tin oxide. The luminance–current–voltage performance and the emission spectrum of the devices are investigated in the bent state under mechanical stress at different bending radii. Down to a curvature of 15 mm, no significant decrease in the device performance is found compared to the relaxed state, as well as to conventional devices on glass substrates.

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Joule heating and its impact on the brightness homogeneity are investigated since the luminance distribution is a key issue in large area organic light emitting diodes. In addition to previous reports, it is also important to consider the device temperature as a main factor for determining the luminance homogeneity. At a luminance of 1000cd∕m2 the active area reaches an average temperature of 40.6°C and a peak of 46.2°C. The increased device temperature is leading to higher local current densities resulting in a reduced brightness homogeneity. Modeling confirms these results and can be used for further device layout optimization.

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The thin electron injection layers between the cathode and the light emitting polymer layer in polymer light emitting diodes (PLEDs) have been shown to have a big impact on the final device performance. Usually, in PLEDs low work function metals like Ba, Mg or Ca are used to reduce the energy barrier between the cathode and the polymer thus providing a better electron injection from the cathode. Also salts like LiF, NaF, Cs2CO3 and CsF have recently been shown to function as electron injection layers in light emitting devices. From these, especially caesium carbonate (Cs2CO3) results into high efficiency diodes both as a solution processed electron injection layer in PLEDs, as well as an n-dopant in the electron transport layer in vacuum deposited small molecule based OLEDs. The functional mechanism of Cs2CO3 as a pure interlayer is not yet fully understood. The proposed mechanisms include the n-doping of the organic layer with Cs2CO3, the thermal decomposition of Cs2CO3 and following formation of caesium metal or the formation of an n-doped CsO2 layer. In this study the phenomena resulting from the combination of a hole-dominant alkoxy-phenyl-substituted poly(phenylene vinylene) (PPV) based light emitting polymer with a highly efficient electron injection layer of Cs2CO3 in light emitting diodes has been investigated. As a result, diodes with about 35 % higher efficiency were achieved with PPV-Cs2CO3 structure in comparison to the traditional PPV-Ba structure. Additionally to the increased efficiency, also the lifetime of the Cs2CO3-diodes is comparable to the Ba-diodes implying that the long-term stability of the diodes is not affected by the optimized Cs2CO3-cathode. The strong increase in the electron injection of the Cs2CO3 diodes is apparently caused by a highly conductive, n-doped layer resulting from the charge transfer reaction between Cs2CO3 and PPV, where the magnitude of the reaction and resulting effects strongly depend on the amount of the applied Cs2CO3. The conclusion of the n-doped layer can be drawn from the LIV, impedance and photoluminescence measurements of the diodes with Ba and Cs2CO3 cathodes before, during and after electrical stressing.

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