Organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) have received a great deal of attention because of potential applications in flat panel displays and lighting. Although science and engineering students maybe familiar with these applications, they typically lack the understanding of the underlying physical principles and device technologies. Fabrication of an OLED in an undergraduate laboratory setting would engage students in an inquiry-based model of learning, facilitating their understanding of the scientific concepts involved.  This would be particularly beneficial to the students in the newly developed Microsystems and Nanotechnology Engineering program at the University of Wisconsin Platteville. Our goal has been to develop a module in which our science and engineering students fabricate and test a working OLED in under three hours of the allotted laboratory time. The active layers of the OLED are spin-coated or brushed onto glass substrates coated with a layer of conducting indium tin oxide (ITO). The cathode is formed by the deposition of gallium-indium eutectic. The equipment used in the fabrication is relatively inexpensive and readily available. An outline of the lesson objectives will be presented along with the challenges that were overcome in developing this module.

Developing a teaching module on organic light-emitting devices for the undergraduate laboratory

246th National Meeting (2013)

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