High efficiency ITO-free flexible white organic light-emitting diodes based on multi-cavity technology

The technology of white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) is attracting growing interest due to their potential application in indoor lighting. Nevertheless the simultaneous achievement of high luminous efficacy (LE), high color rendering index (CRI), very low manufacturing costs and compatibility with flexible thin substrates is still a great challenge. Indeed, very high efficiency devices show usually low values of CRI, not suitable for lighting applications, and use expensive indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes which are not compatible with low cost and/or flexible products. Here we show a novel low cost ITO-free WOLED structure based on a multi-cavity architecture with increased photonic mode density and still broad white emission spectrum, which allows for simultaneous optimization of all device characteristics. Without using out-coupling optics or high refractive index substrates, CRI of 85 and LE as high as 33 lm W⁻¹ and 14 lm W⁻¹ have been demonstrated on ITO-free glass and flexible substrates, respectively.