Surface treatment on polyethylenimine interlayer to improve inverted OLED performance

Polyethylenimine (PEI) interlayer rinsing with different solvents for inverted organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) is systematically studied in this paper. In comparison with the pristine one, the maximum current efficiency (CE_max) and power efficiency (PE_max) are enhanced by 21% and 22% for the device rinsing by ethylene glycol monomethyl ether (EEA). Little effect is found on the work function of the PEI interlayer rinsed by deionized water (DI), ethanol (EtOH), and EEA. On the other hand, the surface morphologies of PEI through different solvent treatments are quite different. Our results indicates that the surface morphology is the key to improving the device performance for IOLED as the work function of PEI keeps stable.