In this work, a new organic light-emitting device (OLED) structure is proposed that allows light-emission from a metal-free device region, thus reducing the hurdles towards an electrically pumped organic solid state laser (OSL). Our design concept employs a stepwise change from a highly conductive but opaque metal part to a highly transparent but less conductive intrinsic emission layer. Here, the high current densities are localized to an area of a few micrometer in square, which is in the range of the mode volume of the transverse mode of an organic vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). Besides these experimental results, we present findings from simulations which further support the feasibility of our design concept. Using an equivalent circuit approach, representing the current flow in the device, we calculate the time-dependent length of the emission zone and give estimations for appropriate material parameters.

Date Published: 27 April 2016
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9895, Organic Photonics VII, 989507 (27 April 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2228233

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9895:
Organic Photonics VII
David Cheyns; Pierre M. Beaujuge; Volker van Elsbergen; Jean-Charles Ribierre, Editor(s)