Transferred Charge in the Active Layer and EL Device Characteristics of TFEL Cells

The relationship between transferred charge in the active layer of a thin-film electroluminescent (TFEL) cell and EL device characteristics has been investigated electrically. Making use of a charge density-voltage characteristic measuring system based on a Sawyer-Tower circuit, a general formula for the input power density was found to be given by twice the product of the frequency, the threshold voltage of the active layer, and the transferred-charge density. From this formula, the luminous efficiency could be estimated, once the dependence of the luminance upon the frequency and the transferred charge density was found. At a frequency smaller than the inverse of twice the luminous decay time, e.g. 500 Hz in the ZnS:Mn case, the luminance was found to be proportional to the product of frequency and transferred charge density. Hence, the luminous efficiency becomes constant with a value 2–2.5 times larger than that for 5 or 1 kHz drive conditions.