Optical design of connecting electrodes for tandem organic light-emitting diodes

Connecting electrodes play a crucial role to assist charge injection into the adjacent electroluminescent units in tandem organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this study, we demonstrate that Mg:Ag alloy is an effective connecting electrode for bottom- and top-emitting tandem OLEDs. Optical cavity design and simulation are also conducted to predict the luminance of tandem OLEDs. It is found that the theoretical luminance of tandem OLEDs is close to but not higher than twofold enhancement over the luminance of a single OLED optimized to the first resonance mode, which is theoretically higher than high-order resonance modes. It is also found that the optical properties of Mg:Ag connecting electrodes, while having relatively small influence on weak microcavity bottom-emitting tandem OLEDs, have large influence on strong microcavity top-emitting tandem OLEDs.