Transient electroluminescence dynamics in small molecular organic light-emitting diodes

Intriguing electroluminescence (EL) spikes, following a voltage pulse applied to small molecular OLEDs, are discussed, elucidating carrier and exciton quenching dynamics and their relation to device structure. At low temperatures, all devices exhibit spikes at ∼70–300 ns and μs-long tails. At 295 K only those with a hole injection barrier, carrier-trapping guest-host emitting layer, and no strong hole-blocking layer exhibit the spikes. They narrow and appear earlier under post-pulse reverse bias. The spikes and tails are in agreement with a revised model of recombination of correlated charge pairs (CCPs) and initially unpaired charges. Decreased post-pulse field-induced dissociative quenching of singlet excitons and CCPs, and possibly increased post-pulse current of holes that “turn back” toward the recombination zone after having drifted beyond it are suspected to cause the spikes’ amplitude, which exceeds the dc EL.