Space charge effects in polymer-based light-emitting diodes studied by means of a polarisation sensitive electroreflectance technique

We used a single wavelength electro-optical reflection technique to study the creation of space charge distributions in a polymer light emitting diode, by monitoring the real third order nonlinear optical response of the electroluminescent layer. The diode is based on an aluminum/polymer/indium tin oxide stack, where the polymer is a derivative of poly(p-phenylene-vinylene) in which oxidiazole groups were grafted as side chains. The measured signal is strongly influenced by a space charge distribution and by screening in the organic layer. The space charge distribution is the superposition of a long lived contribution, close to indium tin oxide, due to charges trapped in deep levels, and of that of relatively mobile charges injected in the polymer film. In the frame of a model which takes into account Debye–Hückel screening, with screening length equal to 100 nm we estimated the carrier density of the long lived charge distribution to be 4.8×1023 m−3, for a uniform distribution in a 110-nm-thick layer. The influence of the injection of mobile charges on the electro-optic signal is an order of magnitude smaller than that of trapped charges. The real third order susceptibility of the polymer is estimated to be χ(3)=4×10−21 m2/V2.