Spatially Resolved Functional Group Analysis of OLED Materials Using EELS and ToF-SIMS

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) is widely used in analyzing the electronic structure of inorganic materials at high spatial resolution. In this study, we use a monochromator to improve the energy resolution, allowing us to analyze the electronic structure of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) materials with greater precision. This study demonstrates the use of the energy-loss near-edge structure to map the nitrogen content of organic molecules and identify the distinct bonding characteristics of aromatic carbon and pyridinic nitrogen. Furthermore, we integrate EELS with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry for molecular mapping of three different bilayers composed of OLED materials. This approach allows us to successfully map functional groups in the by-layer OLED and measure the thickness of two OLED layers. This study introduces spatially resolved functional group analysis using electron beam spectroscopy and contributes to the development of methods for complete nanoscale analysis of organic multilayer architectures.