Tailoring of self-assembled monolayer for polymer light-emitting diodes

The choice of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) is tailored to specifically remove water on an indium-tin oxide electrode and to reduce barrier height for long-term stability of polymer light-emitting diodes. Water, which is a major cause of long-term degradation, is shown to have entirely reversible effects on the power efficiency of the device. It is shown that the use of a SAM for the specific purposes results in a more than an order of magnitude increase in the half lifetime of the device based on poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene].