Optical and Electrical Analysis of Annealing Temperature of High-Molecular Weight Hole Transport Layer for Quantum-dot Light-emitting Diodes

Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 17;9(1):10385. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-46858-6.

Abstract

In this study, we introduce optimization of the annealing conditions for improvement of hardness and hole transporting properties of high-molecular weight poly [9, 9-dioctylfluorene-co-N-(4-(3-methylpropyl)) diphenylamine] (TFB) film used as a Hole Transport Layer (HTL) of Quantum-dot Light-emitting Diodes (QLEDs). As annealing temperatures were increased from 120 °C to 150 °C or more, no dissolving or intermixing phenomena at the interface between HTL and Quantum-Dot Emission Layer (QDs EML) was observed. However, when the annealing temperatures was increased from 150 °C to 210 °C, the intensity of the absorbance peaks as determined by Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) measurement was found to relatively decrease, and hole transporting properties were found to decrease in the measurement of current density - voltage (CD - V) and capacitance - voltage (C - V) characteristics of Hole Only Devices (HODs) due to thermal damage. At the annealing temperature of 150 °C, the QLEDs device was optimized with TFB films having good hardness and best hole transporting properties for solution processed QLEDs.