Carbazole-based electroluminescent devices obtained by vacuum evaporation

Transparent conductive oxide (SnO₂)/organic layers/aluminum thin film sandwich structures were obtained by vacuum evaporation. The organic component was either a thin carbazole film or a bilayer. In that case, the carbazole film was deposited onto a thin insulating polymer film. The polymer used was the poly(tetrabromo-p-phenyleneselenide) (PBrPDSe). Photoluminescence measurements have shown that the carbazole thin films emit blue light. (I-V) measurements have shown that the structures exhibit diode characteristics. The forward direction is obtained when the transparent conductive oxide (TCO) is positively biased. However, the reproducibility of the results obtained with a single carbazole layer is poor. It appears that the stability of the sample is improved when a thin PBrPDSe film (40 nm) is introduced between the carbazole and the SnO₂. The polymer film avoids the short circuit effect. In that case, the turn-on voltage of the diode is about 3 V, when the thickness of the carbazole film is around 250 nm and the electroluminescence appears at a voltage of about 5 V. It is shown that the thermionic effect cannot be used to explain the I-V characteristics, which are interpreted with the help of the Fowler–Nordheim tunnel effect. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 82: 2042–2055, 2001