Role of chemical reactions of arylamine hole transport materials in operational degradation of organic light-emitting diodes

We report that the representative arylamine hole transport materials undergo chemical transformations in operating organic light-emitting diode (OLED) devices. Although the underlying chemical mechanisms are too complex to be completely elucidated, structures of several identified degradation products point at dissociations of relatively weak carbon-nitrogen and carbon-carbon bonds in arylamine molecules as the initiating step. Considering the photochemical reactivities, the bond dissociation reactions of arylamines occur by the homolysis of the lowest singlet excited states formed by recombining charge carriers in the operating OLED device. The subsequent chemical reactions are likely to yield long-lived, stabilized free radicals capable of acting as deep traps—nonradiative recombination centers and fluorescence quenchers. Their presence in the hole transport layer results in irreversible hole trapping and manifests as a positive fixed charge. The extent and localization of chemical transformations in several exemplary devices suggest that the free radical reactions of hole transporting materials, arylamines, can be sufficient to account for the observed luminance efficiency loss and voltage rise in operating OLEDs. The relative bond strengths and excited state energies of OLED materials appear to have a determining effect on the operational stability of OLED devices.