Effect of driving method on the degradation of organic light emitting diodes

Abstract Lifetime testing results are reported for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) having the structure ITO (anode)/ N , N ′-diphenyl- N , N ′-bis(3-methylphenyl)-1,1′-diphenyl-4,4′-diamine (TPD)/tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum (AlQ)/Al (cathode) and operated using dc and pulsed waveforms for comparison. In ambient atmosphere non-encapsulated devices show a lifetime of about 70 h in pulsed operation at an initial luminance of 500 cd/m 2 , almost four times longer than in dc operation. A fast initial decay of luminance is observed for dc operation. It is most probably due to a combination of Joule heating and mobile ionic impurities migration within the OLED structure under the conti…