Effect of the thermal evaporation rate of Al cathodes on organic light emitting diodes

The relationship between the thermal evaporation rate of Al cathodes and the device performance of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) was investigated to clarify the source of leakage current. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry was applied to identify the diffusion of Li and Al fragments into the underlying organic layer during the thermal evaporation process. We prepared various OLEDs by varying the evaporation rates of the Al cathode to investigate different device performance. Interestingly, the leakage current level decreased when the evaporation rate reached ∼25 Å/s. In contrast, the best efficiency and operational lifetime was obtained when the evaporation rate was 5 Å/s.