The inherent flexibility afforded by molecular design has accelerated the development of a wide variety of organic semiconductors over the past two decades. In particular, great advances have been made in the development of materials for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), from early devices based on fluorescent molecules to those using phosphorescent molecules. In OLEDs, electrically injected charge carriers recombine to form singlet and triplet excitons in a 1:3 ratio; the use of phosphorescent metal-organic complexes exploits the normally non-radiative triplet excitons and so enhances the overall electroluminescence efficiency. Here we report a class of metal-free organic electroluminescent molecules in which the energy gap between the singlet and triplet excited states is minimized by design, thereby promoting highly efficient spin up-conversion from non-radiative triplet states to radiative singlet states while maintaining high radiative decay rates, of more than 10(6) decays per second. In other words, these molecules harness both singlet and triplet excitons for light emission through fluorescence decay channels, leading to an intrinsic fluorescence efficiency in excess of 90 per cent and a very high external electroluminescence efficiency, of more than 19 per cent, which is comparable to that achieved in high-efficiency phosphorescence-based OLEDs.

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Highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes from delayed fluorescence

Electroluminescent (EL)devices are constructed using multilayer organic thin films. The basic structure consists of a hole‐transport layer and a luminescent layer. The hole‐transport layer is an amorphous diamine film in which the only mobile carrier is the hole. The luminescent layer consists of a host material, 8‐hydroxyquinoline aluminum (Alq), which predominantly transports electrons. High radiance has been achieved at an operating voltage of less than 10 V. By doping the Alq layer with highly fluorescent molecules, the EL efficiency has been improved by about a factor of 2 in comparison with the undoped cell. Representative dopants are coumarins and DCMs. The ELquantum efficiency of the doped system is about 2.5%, photon/electron. The EL colors can be readily tuned from the blue‐green to orange‐red by a suitable choice of dopants as well as by changing the concentration of the dopant. In the doped system the electron‐hole recombination and emission zones can be confined to about 50 A near the hole‐transport interface. In the undoped Alq, the EL emission zone is considerably larger due to excitondiffusion. The multilayerdopedEL structure offers a simple means for the direct determination of excitondiffusion length.

Electroluminescence of doped organic thin films

In this review, we discuss the physics underlying the operation of single and multiple heterojunction, vacuum-deposited organic solar cells based on small molecular weight thin films. For single heterojunction cells, we find that the need for direct contact between the deposited electrode and the active organics leads to quenching of excitons. An improved device architecture, the double heterojunction, is shown to confine excitons within the active layers, allowing substantially higher internal efficiencies to be achieved. A full optical and electrical analysis of the double heterostructure architecture leads to optimal cell design as a function of the optical properties and exciton diffusion lengths of the photoactive materials. Combining the double heterostructure with novel light trapping schemes, devices with external efficiencies approaching their internal efficiency are obtained. When applied to an organic photovoltaic cell with a power conversion efficiency of 1.0%±0.1% under 1 sun AM1.5 illuminati...

Small molecular weight organic thin-film photodetectors and solar cells

Charge-Transfer and Energy-Transfer Processes in π-Conjugated Oligomers and Polymers: A Molecular Picture

The density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a numerical algorithm for the efficient truncation of the Hilbert space of low-dimensional strongly correlated quantum systems based on a rather general decimation prescription. This algorithm has achieved unprecedented precision in the description of one-dimensional quantum systems. It has therefore quickly become the method of choice for numerical studies of such systems. Its applications to the calculation of static, dynamic, and thermodynamic quantities in these systems are reviewed here. The potential of DMRG applications in the fields of two-dimensional quantum systems, quantum chemistry, three-dimensional small grains, nuclear physics, equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical physics, and time-dependent phenomena is also discussed. This review additionally considers the theoretical foundations of the method, examining its relationship to matrix-product states and the quantum information content of the density matrices generated by the DMRG.

http://www.physics.udel.edu/~bnikolic/QTTG/NOTES/DMRG/SCHOLLWOCK=RMP_dmrg.pdf

The density-matrix renormalization group

http://fizz.phys.dal.ca/~ihill/Publications_files/e-h_energy_cpl.pdf

Charge-separation energy in films of π-conjugated organic molecules

Singlet exciton energy transfer in organic solids

A simple technique employing reverse bias measurements of photoluminescent efficiency is described to determine the excitonic singlet-triplet formation statistics of electroluminescent organic thin films. Using this method, the singlet fractions in thin films of two organic emissive materials commonly used in organic light emitting devices, tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum $({\mathrm{Alq}}_{3})$ and poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MEH-PPV), are found to be $(20\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1)%$ and $(20\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}4)%,$ respectively. Results are confirmed using a sensitive synchronous detection scheme. We discuss other measurements and the current understanding of exciton formation statistics in polymeric and small molecular weight organic electroluminescent materials.

Z. G. Soos

Papers

Charge-separation energy in films of π-conjugated organic molecules

Singlet exciton energy transfer in organic solids

Excitonic singlet-triplet ratios in molecular and polymeric organic materials

Electronic polarization at surfaces and thin films of organic molecular crystals: PTCDA

Theory of π-Molecular Charge-Transfer Crystals