AbstractImproving the efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) by enhancing light outcoupling is common practise and remains relevant as not all optical losses can be avoided. Especially, externally attached scattering layers combine several advantages. They can significantly increase the performance and neither compromise the electric operation nor add high costs during fabrication. Efficiency evaluations of external scattering layers are often done with lab scale OLEDs. In this work we therefore study different characterization techniques of red, green and blue lab scale OLEDs with attached light scattering foils comprising TiO2 particles. Although we observe an increased external quantum efficiency (EQE) with scattering foils, our analysis indicates that areas outside the active area have a significant contribution. This demonstrates that caution is required when efficiency conclusions are transferred to large area applications, for which effects that scale with the edges become less significant. We propose to investigate brightness profiles additionally to a standard EQE characterizations as latter only work if the lateral scattering length is much smaller than the width of the active area of the OLED. Our results are important to achieve more reliable predictions as well as a higher degree of comparability between different research groups in future.
Generalized Poynting vector model to calculate the spatial and spectral profiles of the electric field intensity, optical power flow, and optical absorption for all optical modes of organic light-emitting diodes
