Colloidal quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLED) are promising next-generation displays, exhibiting excellence in color purity, low material cost possibility, brightness. Quantum dots, which have many advantages, require patterning technology becaus...
Colloidal quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLED) are promising next-generation displays, exhibiting excellence in color purity, low material cost possibility, brightness. Quantum dots, which have many advantages, require patterning technology because of their colloidal status. Various patterning method for colloidal QD have been proposed using drop-casting, mist coating, transfer printing, inkjet printing. Drop casting method can fabricate fast but having weakness in large area process. Mist coating method might be made a monolayer deposition with high accuracy but difficulty in high resolution. Transfer printing method is possible to highest resolution patterning in technologies but having an ink contamination issue. However, ink-jet printing technology is emerging interest for the fabrication of QLEDs because of advantages such as high-resolution pattern possibility, fast processability and tiny material usage by drop-on-demand process.
To fabricate high performance QLEDs using inkjet-printing technology, there are some challenges. First is morphology issue which goal is achieving a uniform film deposition against coffee ring effect and bad roughness. Second is a printing failure, which considering accurate positioning of the ink droplet against the angular deviation of the droplet leaving nozzle of the inkjet cartridge. This droplet deflection may be caused by nozzle clogging, machine tremor and error occurrence in inkjet-printing machine, and it leads to two problem such as mis-aiming and overflow. Third is a jeattability for forming a stable drop at nozzle. This is determined by rheological parameters such as viscosity, inertial force, and surface tension. Final is solvent limits which are not dissolving the underlayer, preventing QD aggregation and toxicity to human. There have been studies related to enhancement of inkjet printed QLED by using solvent mixture to form uniform film or using hydrophobic walls to prevent from mis-aiming and overflow, but the reported performance of inkjet-printed QLED is still low. For the practical use of inkjet-printed QLEDs, it is prerequisite to resolve the morphology issue against coffee-ring effect and the printing failure in the relation with the performance of inkjet printed device.
In this study, we improved the EQE and CE of inkjet-printed QLED device using hydrophobic walls and QD-polymer composite ink. Hydrophobic walls are used making the droplet positing precise within the bank and it is evaluated a photolithographic property and the resistivity on the printing failure of this material. QD-polymer composite ink can increase viscosity of ink and induce the additional polymer Marangoni effect. When using hydrophobic walls, printed QD ink with the angular deviation is positioned well in the bank and prevent from the overflow out of emission area. Well defined ink induces the pixel uniformity of devices and resulted QLED exhibit the maximum luminance of 5300 cd m-2 and the external quantum efficiency of 0.11 %. Despite of these relatively low performance, it shows the resistivity of printing failure, so I believe it can be further improved through elaborated optimization.
Also, when PMMA is added in the QD ink, the QD–polymer composite ink can reduce the coffee-ring effect and form a uniform thin film. Pile-up at the bank wall is also reduced by additional polymer Marangoni effect. In addition, PMMA of suitable polymer chain length can reduce the surface roughness, thereby improving the morphological properties of the thin film. The resulting inkjet-printed QLED emit the highest luminance of 73360 cd m-2 and the external quantum efficiency of 2.8 %, which are conspicuously higher than that of the inkjet-printed QLED without polymer additives.
These results in this thesis show the impact of printing accuracy and uniform film formation, and suggest these methods will promise the high performance of inkjet printed QLEDs