Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Optical Converter with an Embedded Mirror

Description of the Invention

This invention is on integrating a photodetector, an embedded metal electrode mirror with dual function as an optical mirror and charge injection electrode, and an organic light emitting diode (OLED).

This integrated optical converter device is capable of detecting an incoming electromagnetic wave and converting the wave back to visible light wave. In the second aspect of the invention, the optical converter is an upconverter consisting of an InGaAs/InP p-i-n structure as photodetector, gold-coated metals as embedded mirror and a top-emission OLED. For such, a near-infrared (NIR) to visible light electro-optic upconverter, incoming NIR light is absorbed by the InGaAs/InP detector to generate photocurrent. The photoinduced charge carriers are then injected into the emission layer of the OLED to emit visible light.

UW project’s novelty lies on the integration of organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) with inorganic photodetectors. An OLED device consists of a simple stack of anode, a hole transport layer (HTL), a light-emitting layer, an electron transport layer (ETL), a cathode layer, and it typically emits visible light. As each organic molecule is a topologically perfect structure, the growth of each organic layer does not require “lattice matching”, which has been the fundamental limit for the growth of inorganic semiconductor monolithic devices. Moreover, OLED emission wavelengths can be easily varied across the complete visible spectrum.

Advantages

Ø  UW technology will provide a simple approach to produce a largearea, high-efficiency and low-cost infrared imaging devices.

Ø  The cost will significantly be reduced while the efficiency can be further improved.

Potential applications

Ø  military (night vision),

Ø  law-enforcement (surveillance),

Ø  semiconductor industry (integrate circuit inspection, solar cell inspection) and

Ø  bio-medical industry (bio-imaging)

Development status

Ø  Proof-of-principle studies in progress

Ø  Seeking industrial partner for hybrid optical converter with an embedded mirror