Green exciplex emission from a bilayer light-emitting diode containing a rare earth ternary complex

A bilayer organic light-emitting diode using a blue-fluorescent yttrium complex, tris(1-phenyl-3-methyl-4-isobutyryl-5-pyrazolone)-(2,2′-dipyridyl) yttrium [Y(PMIP)3(Bipy)] (YPB) as an emitting material and poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVK) as a hole-transporting material emitted bright green light instead of blue light. It was attributed to the exciplex formation at the solid interface between the PVK and YPB layers, which was demonstrated by the measurement of the absorption, photoluminescence (PL) and photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectra of the mixture of PVK and YPB (molar ratio 1:1). The device exhibited a maximum luminance of 177 cd/m2 and a peak power efficiency of 0.02 lm/W.