Origin of yellow emission in white OLED with single emitting material

The photo-luminescence (PL) and electro-luminescence (EL) of a novel organic material, benzodithiophene/triphenylamine copolymer (P-PBTx, n=5-6) were investigated. The PL exhibited wide blue emission at room temperature, which is attributed to fluorescence from a chromophore, benzodithiophene moiety, from results of spectral analysis and decay profile. The EL, however, exhibited white emission consisting of wide blue (B) and yellow (Y) bands, although it was prepared with P-PBTx as a single emitting material. The Y-band was slightly observed at 7 K and found to possess long lived component of 19 ms lifetime. The origin of the Y-band efficiently stimulated by carrier injection is supposed to be a charge-transfer state between benzodithiophene and triphenylamine moieties. The long lived component could be explained by lowered transition probability caused by charge separation. (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)