Metal oxides as a hole-injecting layer for an organic electroluminescent device

Abstract

We demonstrate that by using thin films of metal oxides, such as vanadium oxide (VOx), molybdenum oxide (MoOx) and ruthenium oxide (RuOx), as a hole-injecting layer for an organic electroluminescent (EL) device consisting of N,N'-diphenyl-N,N-bis(3-methylphenyl1)1,1'-biphenyl-4,4' diamine (TPD) and tris-(8-quinolinolato) aluminium (Alq), the EL device performance can be significantly improved. The `operating voltage' of the device is reduced with respect to a device with a well known indium - tin-oxide (ITO) electrode for hole injection. We consider that the improvement of the operating voltage is attributable to the lower energy barrier for hole injection at the metal oxide/TPD interface.