We investigated interfacial mixing of solution-processed organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) using impedance spectroscopy (IS) and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and its impact on device performance. We focused on interfacial mixing between a solution-processed cross-linkable hole transport layer (XM) and an emitting layer (EML), formed either by solution processing or vacuum evaporation. The results of IS and UPS clearly indicated that extensive interfacial mixing was unavoidable, even after the XM was cross-linked to make it insoluble and rinsed to remove residual soluble species, if the subsequent EML was solution processed. In addition, we also demonstrated that interfacial mixing indeed increased hole current density in corresponding hole only device (HOD). In fact, the hole injection efficiency could be an order of magnitude better when the EML was solution processed rather than vacuum evaporated. We investigated such behavior to find the desirable process condition of solution-processed OLEDs.
Keywords: Ar clustering sputtering; impedance spectroscopy; interfacial mixing; solution-processed OLEDs; ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy.