Identifying and alleviating electrochemical side-reactions in light-emitting electrochemical cells

We demonstrate that electrochemical side-reactions involving the electrolyte can be a significant and undesired feature in light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs). By direct optical probing of planar LECs, comprising Au electrodes and an active material mixture of {poly[2-methoxy-5-(2- ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MEH-PPV) + poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) + KCF₃SO₃}, we show that two direct consequences of such a side-reaction are the appearance of a "degradation layer" at the negative cathode and the formation of the light-emitting p-n junction in close proximity to the cathode. We further demonstrate that a high initial drive voltage and a high ionic conductivity of the active material strongly alleviate the extent of the side reaction, as evidenced by the formation of a relatively centered p-n junction, and also rationalize our findings in the framework of a general electrochemical model. Finally, we show that the doping concentrations in the doped regions at the time of the p-n junction formation are independent of the applied voltage and relatively balanced at ∼0.11 dopants/MEH-PPV repeat unit in the p-type region and ∼0.15 dopants/MEH-PPV repeat unit in the n-type region.