9612281 Sturm The PI's propose an interdisciplinary program to investigate the critical issues currently confronting developments in the new and very promising field of polymer-based organic light emitting devices (OLEDs). Red, green and blue emitting OLEDs have recently gained worldwide attention due to their promise for revolutionizing the flat panel display industry. Before these devices can be used in practical low cost displays, however, many problems of fundamental as well as of a practical nature must be addressed and solved. Among the most important issues, which are the subject of the proposed investigations, are: (i) thickness and compositional control of the light emitting and charge-transporting thin films; (ii) control and reduction of impurity incorporation into the films, as well as assessment of the effects of impurities on OLED performance, (iii) understanding and control of electron and excitor transport across organic/organic and organic/metal interfaces, (iv) improvement of device reliability, and (v) device processing and integration. We have assembled a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Departments of Chemistry, Chemical, and Electrical Engineering at Princeton University and the University of Southern California with a long term track record of collaboration for making fundamental advances in the field of OLEDs. We will apply a range of novel concepts and experimental methods to address all four of these key issues to the study of polymer/polymer, polymer/small molecule, and organic/metal interfaces and devices. We anticipate that the impact of this work will extend well beyond OLED science and technology, into the field of a wide range of active polymeric and small molecular organic heterojunction devices such as transistors and solar cells. ***
