Improving the Performance of Blue Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes Using a Hole Injection Layer with a High Work Function and Nanotexture

Single-Layer Blue Organic Light-Emitting Diodes With Near-Unity Internal Quantum Efficiency

Efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) commonly comprise a multilayer stack including charge-transport and charge- and exciton-blocking layers, to confine charge recombination to the emissive layer. Here, a highly simplified single-layer blue-emitting OLED is demonstrated based on thermally activated delayed fluorescence with the emitting layer simply sandwiched between ohmic contacts consisting of a polymeric conducting anode and a metal cathode. The single-layer OLED exhibits an external quantum efficiency of 27.7% with minor roll-off at high brightness. The internal quantum efficiency approaches unity, demonstrating that highly simplified single-layer OLEDs without confinement layers can achieve state-of-the-art performance, while greatly reducing the complexity of the design, fabrication, and device analysis.

Solution-Processable Pure-Red Multiple Resonance-induced Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Emitter for Organic Light-Emitting Diode with External Quantum Efficiency over 20

Developing solution-processable red organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with high color purity and efficiency based on multiple resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR-TADF) is a formidable challenge. Herein, by introducing auxiliary electron donor and acceptor moieties into the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) distributed positions of multiple resonance skeleton simultaneously, an effective strategy to obtain red MR-TADF emitters was represented. The proof-of-the-concept molecule BN-R exhibits a narrowband pure-red emission at 624 nm, with a high luminous efficiency of 94 % and a narrow bandwidth of 46 nm. Notably, the fabricated solution-processable pure-red OLED based on BN-R exhibits a state-of-the-art external quantum efficiency over 20 % with the Commission Internationale de I'Éclairage coordinates of (0.663, 0.337) and a long operational lifetime (LT₅₀ ) of 1088 hours at an initial luminance of 1000 cd m^-2 .

Improving the power performance of urine-fed microbial fuel cells using PEDOT-PSS modified anodes

The need for improving the energy harvesting from Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) has boosted the design of new materials in order to increase the power performance of this technology and facilitate its practical application. According to this approach, in this work different poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT-PSS) modified electrodes have been synthesised and evaluated as anodes in urine-fed MFCs. The electrochemical synthesis of PEDOT-PSS was performed by potentiostatic step experiments from aqueous solution at a fixed potential of 1.80 V (vs. a reversible hydrogen electrode) for different times: 30, 60, 120 and 240 s. Compared with other methods, this technique allowed us not only to reduce the processing time of the electrodes but also better control of the chemical composition of the deposited polymer and therefore, obtain more efficient polymer films. All modified anodes outperformed the maximum power output by MFCs working with the bare carbon veil electrode but the maximum value was observed when MFCs were working with the PEDOT-PSS based anode obtained after 30 s of electropolymerisation (535.1 µW). This value was 24.3% higher than using the bare carbon veil electrode. Moreover, the functionality of the PEDOT-PSS anodes was reported over 90 days working in continuous mode.