Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are attractive with their great potential in high-quality flat-panel displays and solid-state lighting. However, it has been difficult to determine the distribution of molecules inside these organic thin-film devices. Recently, argon gas cluster ion beams (Ar-GCIBs, Arn+, 1000&lt;n&lt;4000) were found to be useful in preserving molecular information for depth profiling of organic materials in Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS). However, the effect of beam parameters including cluster size and kinetic energy on the analysis of organic thin-film devices with inorganic electrodes is not yet clear. In this work, ToF-SIMS is used to examine the microstructure of OLED devices using different parameters of Ar-GCIB. The emissive layer (EL) of the device was spin-coated poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) (F8BT) and poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MEH-ppv) for green and red emission, respectively. The profiled device structure was Al/CsF/EL/PEDOT:PSS/ITO. The quality of the depth profile obtained with different cluster size and kinetic energy was discussed in terms of ionization efficiency of the target molecular fragment, accumulation of chemical damage in the remaining layer, depth resolution, sputter rate and experimental time.

Effect of cluster size and energy of argon gas cluster sputter yields on the depth profiling of organic light-emitting devices

251st National Meeting (2016)

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