Optical Simulation Study on the Effect of Diffusing Substrate and Pillow Lenses on the Outcoupling Efficiency of Organic Light Emitting Diodes

The effect of diffusing substrate and pillow lenses on the outcoupling efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) was studied by optical simulation based on the point-dipole model. The diffusing substrate included Mie scatterers by which the condition of total internal reflection could be broken. The finite-difference time-domain method was used to obtain the intensity distribution on the transparent electrode of an OLED, which was used as a light source to carry out a ray-tracing simulation of the OLED and the diffusing substrate. It was found that the outcoupling efficiency of the OLED was sensitive to the thickness of organic layers and could be increased by 21.0% by adopting a diffusing substrate in which Mie scatterers whose radius was 2.0 mu m were included at the density of 107 mm(-3) and by 65.5% by forming one pillow lens with the radius of 2 mm on the front surface of the glass substrate. This study revealed that the outcoupling efficiency could be improved by adopting diffusing substrate and pillow lenses along with the optimization of the thickness of each layer in the OLED.