Investigating underlying mechanism in spectral narrowing phenomenon induced by microcavity in organic light emitting diodes

This paper reports our experimental studies on the underlying mechanism responsible for electroluminescence spectral narrowing phenomenon in the cavity-based organic light-emitting diodes. It is found that the microcavity generates an emerging phenomenon: a magneto-photoluminescence signal in Poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) polymer under photoexcitation, which is completely absent when microcavity is not used. This provides an evidence that microcavity leads to the formation of spatially extended states, functioning as the intermediate states prior to the formation of Frenkel excitons in organic materials. This is confirmed by the magneto-electroluminescence solely observed from the cavity-based light-emitting diodes under electrical injection. Furthermore, the narrowed electroluminescence output shows a linear polarization, concurrently occurred with magneto-electroluminescence. This indicates that the spatially extended sates become aligned towards forming coherent light-emitting excitons within the microcavity through optical resonance. Clearly, the spatially extended states present the necessary condition to realize electroluminescence spectral narrowing phenomenon towards lasing actions in cavity-based organic light-emitting diodes. Realizing electrically-pumped lasing actions in microcavity organic light-emitting diodes requires elucidating the origin of spectrally-narrowed electroluminescence amplification. Here, the authors show that the microcavity induces spatially extended states with polaron-pair like characteristics.