KR101979181B1 - High resolution organic light-emitting diode devices - Google Patents

Abstract

According to an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, a method of manufacturing an organic light emitting display can be provided. A plurality of electrodes may be provided on the substrate. The first hole conductive layer may be deposited over a plurality of electrodes on the substrate via inkjet printing. The liquid affinity of the selected surface portion of the first hole conductive layer may be varied to form the luminescent layer confinement region. Each light emitting layer confinement region may have a portion corresponding to each of the plurality of electrodes provided on the substrate. The organic light emitting layer may be deposited in the respective light emitting layer confinement region through inkjet printing.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a high-resolution organic light-emitting diode (OLED)

Cross-reference to related application

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Patent Application No. 14 / 030,776, filed on September 18, 2013, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 753,692, filed January 17, . The present application also claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 753,713, filed January 17, 2013, each of the above-mentioned applications being incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical field

Aspects of the disclosure generally relate to electronic displays and methods for manufacturing electronic displays. More particularly, aspects of the disclosure relate to depositing and confining active organic light emitting diode (OLED) display materials on a substrate to fabricate OLED displays.

The section headings used herein are for structural purposes only and are not to be construed in any way as limiting the described subject matter.

Electronic displays exist in a wide variety of electronic equipment, such as television screens, computer monitors, cell phones, smart phones, tablets, portable game consoles, and the like. One type of electronic display relies on organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology. OLED technology uses an organic light emitting layer sandwiched between two electrodes disposed on a substrate. A voltage may be applied across the electrode so that the charge carriers are excited and injected into the organic light emitting layer. Luminescence can occur through photoelectron emission as the charge carriers are again relaxed to the normal energy state. OLED technology can provide a relatively high contrast ratio to a display because each pixel is individually addressed to produce luminescence only within the addressed pixels. Further, the OLED display can provide a wide viewing angle due to the diverging nature of the pixel. The power efficiency of OLED displays can be improved over other display technologies because OLED pixels only consume power when OLED pixels are driven directly. In addition, the resulting panel may be much thinner than other display technologies, due to the light-generating sludge and thinner device construction of the technology that eliminates the need for a light source within the display itself. In addition, the OLED display can be made flexible and bendable due to the conformable coating of the active OLED layer.

Inkjet printing is a technique that can be used in OLED manufacturing and can reduce manufacturing costs. Ink-jet printing uses droplets of ink containing the OLED layer material and one or more carrier liquids from the nozzles at high speed, for example, a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, an electron blocking layer, an organic light emitting layer, , An electron injection layer, and / or a hole blocking layer.

A confinement structure, such as a bank, is typically provided on the substrate so that each confinement well forms a confinement well that can be associated with one or more sub-pixels, for example, sub-pixels of different emission color or wavelength do. The confinement well can prevent the deposited active OLED material (s) from spreading between adjacent sub-pixels. Ink-jet printing methods may require substantial accuracy. In particular, as the pixel density increases and / or the display size decreases, the confinement region of the confinement well is reduced and a small error in the droplet position can be deposited outside of the intended well. In addition, the droplet volume may be too large for the confinement well, and undesirably the droplet may overflow into adjacent sub-pixels.

In addition, due to film drying imperfections, non-uniformity in the active OLED layer can be formed at the edge that contacts the containment structure. Film drying defects can be caused by the materials used in the manufacturing process and / or the containment structure. As the confinement well is reduced, the non-uniformity of the layer can be eroded on the active luminescent region of the pixel producing undesirable visible artifacts in light emission from the pixel caused by the non-uniformity. Also, the resulting relative reduction in the layer uniformity associated with the active luminescent region of the pixel can have a negative impact on the efficiency of the display, since the electrode must be driven more strongly to achieve relative brightness. When the material used for the shielding structure affects film drying defects, the active OLED material may have to be newly fabricated.

In addition, the reduction in the ratio of the active region to the entire region (where the entire region can reduce the lifetime of the display, including both the inactive and active regions of each pixel, by the blocking structure and the non-uniformly active luminescent region Because each electrode must be driven with more current to achieve equivalent display brightness and using more current to drive each electrode is known to reduce pixel lifetime. The ratio of the active region to the " fill factor "

Despite the fact that traditional ink jet methods address some of the challenges associated with OLED display manufacturing, there is a continuing need for improvements. For example, there is a continuing need to improve droplet deposition accuracy in the manufacture of OLEDs, especially OLED displays with high resolution (i.e., high pixel density). In addition, there is a need to reduce undesirable visible artifacts produced by deposition of organic light-emitting layers in high-resolution displays. There is also a need to improve the device lifetime by increasing the fill factor of each pixel. It is also possible to use OLED displays in high resolution display applications where, for example, but not limited to high resolution mobile phone and tablet computers, have challenges in achieving acceptable resolution, power efficiency, display lifetime and manufacturing cost, There is a need for improvement.

This disclosure is capable of solving one or more of the problems mentioned above and / or one or more of the above-recited preferred features. Other features and / or advantages may become apparent from the following description.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, a method of manufacturing an organic light emitting display is provided. A plurality of electrodes may be provided on the substrate. The first hole conductive layer may be deposited over a plurality of electrodes on the substrate via inkjet printing. The liquid affinity of the selected surface portion of the first hole conductive layer may be varied to form the luminescent layer confinement region. Each light emitting layer confinement region may have a portion corresponding to each of the plurality of electrodes provided on the substrate. The organic light emitting layer may be deposited in the respective light emitting layer confinement region through inkjet printing.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, an organic light emitting display can be provided. A plurality of electrodes can be deposited on the substrate. The plurality of electrodes may be arranged in an array configuration. The confinement structure may be disposed on the substrate. The confinement structure may surround a plurality of electrodes. The first hole conductive layer may be disposed over a plurality of electrodes in the confinement structure. The liquid affinity of the surface portion of the first hole conductive layer may be changed to form the luminescent layer confinement region in the first hole conductive layer. The organic light emitting layer may be disposed within each light emitting layer confinement region.

In another exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, an organic light emitting display is provided, which can be manufactured by a process. A substrate including a plurality of electrodes disposed on a substrate may be provided. At least one hole conductive layer may be deposited over the plurality of electrodes on the substrate via inkjet printing. The liquid affinity of the selected portion of the at least one hole conductive layer may be changed to form the luminescent layer confinement region on the surface of the at least one hole conductive layer. The organic light emitting layer may be deposited in the respective light emitting layer confinement regions formed in the at least one hole conductive layer through inkjet printing.

Additional objects and advantages will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, and may be learned by practice of the present disclosure. At least some of the objects and advantages of the disclosure can be realized and obtained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive in the claims. It is to be understood that in the broadest sense, various embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without one or more of the features of these exemplary aspects and embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate some exemplary embodiments of the disclosure by way of illustration and description of certain principles. In the figure,
Figure 1 is a partial plan view of a conventional pixel arrangement,
Figure 2 is a partial plan view of an exemplary pixel arrangement according to the present disclosure,
3A is a cross-sectional view of a confinement well along the line 3A-3A in FIG. 1 of an exemplary embodiment according to the present disclosure,
Figure 3B is a cross-sectional view of a confinement well according to 3B-3B in Figure 1 of an exemplary embodiment according to the present disclosure
Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view similar to that of Figure 3a of another exemplary embodiment of a confinement well according to the present disclosure,
Figure 5A is a cross-sectional view similar to that of Figure 3A of another exemplary embodiment of a confinement well according to the present disclosure,
Figure 5B is a cross-sectional view similar to that of Figure 3B of another exemplary embodiment of a confinement well according to the present disclosure,
Figure 6 is a cross-sectional view of another exemplary embodiment of a confinement well according to the present disclosure,
7 is a cross-sectional view of another exemplary embodiment of a confinement well according to the present disclosure,
8-11 are cross-sectional views of another exemplary embodiment of a confinement well according to the present disclosure and an exemplary step for creating an OLED display,
Figures 12-19 are partial plan views of various exemplary pixel arrangements in accordance with the present disclosure,
20 is a front view of an exemplary apparatus including an electronic display according to the present disclosure,
Figure 21 is a front view of yet another exemplary device comprising an electronic display in accordance with the present disclosure,
22 is a top view of an exemplary embodiment of an OLED display according to the present disclosure,
Figure 23 is a cross-sectional view of an OLED according to line 23-23 in Figure 22 of an exemplary embodiment according to the present disclosure,
Figures 24-29 are cross-sectional views of another exemplary embodiment of an OLED display, illustrating exemplary steps for creating an OLED display in accordance with the present disclosure,
30 is a cross-sectional view of the enlarged portion M shown in Fig. 29,
31 is a plan view of the enlarged portion M shown in Fig. 29,
32 is another plan view of an enlarged portion of another exemplary embodiment of an OLED display in accordance with the present disclosure,
33 is an alternate exemplary embodiment of a cross-sectional view of the enlarged portion M shown in Fig. 29,
34-36 are cross-sectional views of another exemplary embodiment of an OLED display, illustrating exemplary steps for creating an OLED display in accordance with the present disclosure,
Figure 37 is an alternate exemplary embodiment of a cross-sectional view of an enlarged portion M depicted in Figure 29 in accordance with the present disclosure,
Figures 38 and 39 are cross-sectional views of another exemplary embodiment of an OLED display, illustrating exemplary steps for creating an OLED display in accordance with the present disclosure,
Figure 40 is a cross-sectional view of the enlarged portion described in Figure 39 of another exemplary embodiment of an OLED display in accordance with the present disclosure,
41 is a partial plan view of an exemplary pixel arrangement according to the present disclosure;

Various illustrative embodiments of the disclosure are referred to, and examples thereof are shown in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or unique parts.

For the purposes of the specification and claims, unless otherwise indicated, all numbers expressing quantities, percentages, or ratios, and other numerical values used in the specification and claims are, in all instances, Quot; and " about " Accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters provided in the following detailed description and claims are approximations that may vary depending on the attributes desired to be acquired. It is not an attempt to limit the application of the doctrine of equivalents to the scope of the claims, and each numerical parameter should be construed in accordance with conventional rounding techniques in connection with the reported significant numbers.

As used herein, the use of the singular forms " a ", " an ", and " the " includes plural objects as long as they are not explicitly and explicitly limited to a single object. As used herein, the term " comprises " and grammatical variants thereof are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention, as such reference is not to be taken to the exclusion of any other such items as may be added to, or substituted with, I intend.

Also, the terms in this description are not intended to limit the invention. For example, the spatial relationship terms - e.g., "lower", "lower", "lower", "upper", "lower", "above", "upper", "horizontal" May be used to describe one element or a relationship with another element or feature of the feature. These spatial relationship terms are intended to encompass different positions (i.e., locations) and orientations (i.e., rotational orientations) of the device being used or operating in addition to the location and orientation shown in the figures. For example, if the device in the drawing is inverted, other elements or elements described as " below " will be " above " the element or feature. Thus, the exemplary term " below " may include both upper and lower positions and orientations depending on the overall orientation of the device. The device can be oriented differently (90 degrees rotation or other orientation) and the spatial relationship descriptor used herein is interpreted accordingly.

As used herein, " pixel " means a functionally complete and repeating minimum unit of a luminescent pixel array. The term " sub-pixel " is intended to mean a portion of one pixel that constitutes a discrete light emitting portion of a pixel, but which does not necessarily constitute all light emitting portions. For example, in a full color display, a pixel may include three primary color sub-pixels, e.g., red, green, and blue. In a monochrome display, the terms sub-pixel and pixel may be used equally and interchangeably.

The term " coupled " when used in reference to an electronic component refers to two or more electronic components, circuits, systems, or (1) components in a manner that allows signals (e.g., current, voltage, or optical signals) Linking, or association of at least one electronic component, (2) at least one circuit, or (3) any combination of at least one system . The connection, linking, or association of two or more electronic components, circuits, or systems may be direct, and alternatively there may be an intermediate connection, linking, or association, and thus the connection does not necessarily require a physical connection.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the term " high resolution " generally refers to a resolution in which the number of pixels per inch (ppi) exceeds 100, and sometimes 300 ppi may be referred to as ultra high resolution. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the pixel density is not directly correlated to the size of the display. The various illustrative embodiments disclosed herein may be used to obtain high resolution in small display sizes and large display sizes. For example, a display having a size of about 3 inches to about 11 inches may be implemented as a high resolution display. In addition, displays with larger sizes, such as 55 "or larger television displays, can also be used with the various exemplary embodiments described herein to obtain high resolution displays.

As used herein, a layer or a structure that is " on " a surface is intended to mean that the layer is in abutting and indirect contact with the surface on which it is formed and that there is an intermediate layer or structure between the layer or structure and the surface Include all cases.

The term " reactive surface-active material " refers to a material that can be used to modify at least one property of a layer of an OLED display when applied to the surface of the layer during manufacture of the display. For example, when a reactive surface-active material is exposed to radiation, e.g., radiation, at least one of the physical, chemical, and / or electrical properties of the layer associated with the reactive surface-active material may be altered. In an exemplary embodiment, the terms " liquid-affinity region " and " liquid-repelling region " - can be used to refer to the resulting relative surface energy generated on the surface of the layer associated with the active material. For example, a " liquid-affinity region " can be used to refer to a portion of the surface of a layer having a surface energy that tends to be attracted to the liquid such that when the liquid is a water- May be hydrophilic. The " liquid-rejection region " can be used to refer to a portion of the surface of a layer having a surface energy that tends to reject the liquid such that when the liquid is a water-based fluid, the liquid-rejection region may be relatively hydrophobic . However, the liquid-rejection portion is not completely hydrophobic to the fluid. In other words, the liquid-rejection region does not have surface energy that completely rejects the fluid, but instead, the liquid migrates from the liquid-rejection region and becomes liquid- There will be a tendency to be attracted to the realm.

Various factors can affect the deposition accuracy of the organic light emitting layer in OLED display fabrication techniques, such as for example an OLED layer material (e.g., an active OLED material) containing an OLED layer material and one or more carrier fluids, (E.g., surface tension, viscosity, boiling point), and the rate at which the droplets are deposited. When the display resolution increases, for example, to more than 100 ppi or more than 300 ppi, various problems arise in using inkjet printing techniques for OLED display fabrication. High precision inkjet heads used in conventional printing techniques can produce droplet sizes of from about 1 picoliter (pL) to about 50 picoliter (pL), with about 10 pL being relatively comparable to high precision inkjet printing applications It is a common size. The drop position accuracy of a conventional inkjet printing system is about +/- 10 mu m. In various exemplary embodiments, a confinement well may be provided on the substrate to compensate for the droplet position error. The confinement well may be a structure that prevents the OLED material from migrating out of the desired sub-pixel region. In order to ensure that the droplets exactly land at the desired location on the substrate, for example, in a confinement well, the various exemplary embodiments make the confinement well wider than the droplet diameter plus two times the droplet position error of the system. For example, the diameter of a 10 pL droplet is about 25 microns and thus the above-mentioned parameter will indicate the use of a confinement well of at least 45 microns (25 microns + (2 * 10 microns)) as its minimum dimension. Even in the case of 1 pL droplet, the droplet diameter is 12 micrometers, which indicates a confinement well having a minimum dimension of at least 32 micrometers.

Various pixel layouts depending on the obscuration well having a minimum dimension of at least 45 [mu] m can be used in an OLED display with a resolution of up to 100 ppi. However, in a high resolution display above 100 ppi, for example, the 10 pL droplet is too large and the droplet position accuracy is too poor to reliably provide a consistent loading of the droplet into the confinement well around each sub-pixel. In addition, as noted above, in the case of a high-resolution display, covering the increased size of the display area with the structure used to form the confinement well can negatively affect the fill factor of each pixel, Is defined as the ratio of the light emitting area of the pixel to the total pixel area. When the fill factor decreases, each pixel must be driven more strongly to obtain the same overall display brightness, thereby reducing the lifetime and performance of each pixel of the display.

To further illustrate some of the above-mentioned problems in working with ultra-high resolution displays, FIG. 1 illustrates one conventional pixel layout 1700. Pixels 1750 may include sub-pixels 1720, 1730, and 1740 arranged in a side-by-side fashion and sub-pixel 1720 may include sub- Pixel 1730 is associated with emission in the green spectral range and sub-pixel 1740 is associated with emission in the blue spectral range. Each sub-pixel may be surrounded by a containment structure 1704 that forms a confinement well that directly corresponds to the sub-pixels 1720, 1730, and 1740. The electrode 1726 corresponds to the sub-pixel 1720 and the electrode 1736 corresponds to the sub-pixel 1730 and the electrode 1746 corresponds to the sub-pixel 1740. One sub- Can be associated with each of the confinement wells. Sub-pixel 1720 may have width D, sub-pixel 1730 may have width C, sub-pixel 1740 may have width B, and these widths may be the same or different . As shown, all sub-pixels may have a length A. In addition, the dimensions E, F, and G may indicate the space between the openings of the confinement wells. The values assigned to the dimensions E, F, G may be very large, in some cases, especially in lower resolution displays, for example, greater than 100 microns. For higher resolution displays, however, it is desirable to minimize these dimensions to maximize the active pixel area and maximize the fill factor. As shown in Figure 1, the active pixel area, indicated by the hatched area, is the entire area within each of the sub-pixel confinement wells.

Various factors can affect the dimensions E, F, G and, for example, the minimum value for these dimensions may be limited by the machining method. For example, in various exemplary embodiments described herein, E = F = G = 12 [mu] m as a minimum dimension. For example, in a display with a resolution of 326 ppi, the pixel pitch may be equal to 78 μm and E = F = G = 12 μm. The confinement well associated with each of the sub-pixels 1720, 1730, and 1740 may have a target area of 14 占 퐉 66 占 퐉 (i.e., dimensions B 占 A, C 占 A, and D 占 A) Is the minimum dimension of less than 45 [mu] m mentioned above in connection with using inkjet droplets having a volume of 10 pL. It is also a dimension less than 32 [mu] m as mentioned above for 1 pL droplets. In addition, the fill factor of a pixel defined as the ratio of the active pixel area (i.e., the area associated with light emission) to the entire pixel area is 46%. In other words, 54% of the pixel area corresponds to the confinement structure 1704. Along the same line, for a display with 440 ppi resolution, the pixel pitch P may be equal to 58 μm and E = F = G = 12 μm. The confinement well associated with each of the light-emitting sub-pixels 1720, 1730, and 1740 may have a target droplet area of 7 mu m x 46 mu m where a dimension of 7 mu m leads to an accurate drop position of both 10 pL and 1 pL ink- It is a considerably smaller dimension than the minimum dimension mentioned. In this case, the fill factor for a display having 440 ppi is about 30%.

Deposition techniques in accordance with the various exemplary embodiments described herein can provide improved reliability in the loading of the confinement wells and in the deposition of electronic displays, such as active OLED layers for high resolution displays. The active OLED layer may include, for example, one or more of the following layers: a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, an electron blocking layer, an organic light emitting layer, an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, and a hole blocking layer. Implementation of some of the previously identified active OLED layers for electronic displays is preferred and implementation of some active OLED layers is optional. For example, at least one hole conduction layer, such as a hole injection layer or a hole transport layer, as well as an organic light emitting layer must be present. All other previously identified layers may be included as needed to alter (e.g., improve) the electronic display, e.g., the emission and power efficiency of the OLED display.

Various exemplary embodiments of the confinement well type described herein can increase the size of the confinement well while maintaining a high pixel resolution. For example, various illustrative embodiments may be used to provide a relatively high pixel density, which allows for the use of relatively achievable droplet sizes and conventional printing system accuracy during deposition of the active OLED layer, A relatively large confinement well is used. Thus, rather than requiring a specially configured or reconstituted printing head and a new printing system with a smaller droplet volume that may or may not be available, inkjet nozzles for depositing droplets of 1 pL to 50 pL volume can be used have. In addition, by using these larger confinement wells, small manufacturing errors will not have a substantially negative impact on the deposition accuracy and the deposited active OLED layers can be retained within the confinement wells.

According to various exemplary embodiments, the ink-jet printing technique can provide a sufficiently uniform deposition of the active OLED layer. For example, various components commonly used in OLED displays derive topography at different heights, e.g., heights differing by more than about 100 nanometers (nm), on the top surface layer of the confinement wells. For example, a component, such as an electrode, may be deposited on a substrate to form a gap between neighboring electrodes, thereby forming individually addressable electrodes associated with each of the different sub-pixels. Regardless of which active OLED layer is deposited on the electrode disposed on the substrate of the display, the height difference between the planar surface of the upper surface of the electrode and the upper surface of the substrate of the in-area display between neighboring electrodes is later deposited It can contribute to the topography of the layer. For example, on the active electrode area, the active OLED layer can be deposited by the exemplary inkjet printing technique and final display according to the present invention, such that the thickness of the active OLED layer is sufficiently uniform, May be the area of the electrode associated with the active sub-pixel region. In an exemplary embodiment, the thickness of the OLED layer over at least the active electrode region may be less than the thickness of the sub-pixel electrode. A sufficiently uniform thickness of the OLED layer over the active electrode area can reduce undesirable visible artifacts. For example, an OLED ink formulation and printing process can be implemented to minimize unevenness in the deposited film thickness in a particular deposition area, even when the area includes both electrode and non-electrode areas. In other words, a portion of the deposition area that is not covered by the electrode structure can contribute to the OLED layer topography, so that the OLED layer in the deposition area can sufficiently conform to the underlying structure. By minimizing the non-uniformity of the deposited film thickness, substantially uniform light emission can be provided when certain sub-pixel electrodes are addressed and activated.

According to another exemplary embodiment, the pixel layout shape contemplated by the present invention may increase the active area area. For example, the confinement structure may form a confinement well having adjacent regions spanning a plurality of sub-pixels such that the non-active portion of the display (e.g., the substrate region associated with the confinement structure) is reduced. For example, instead of a confinement structure surrounding each sub-pixel electrode, as in various OLED displays, a plurality of individually addressed sub-pixel electrodes may be surrounded by a confinement structure, wherein each sub- May be associated with other pixels. By reducing the area occupied by the confinement structure, the fill factor can be maximized since the ratio of the non-active area to the active area of each pixel is increased. Obtaining this increase in the fill factor not only enables high resolution in a smaller size display, but also the lifetime of the display can be improved.

According to another exemplary embodiment, the disclosure contemplates an organic light emitting display comprising a containment structure disposed on a substrate, wherein the containment structure forms a plurality of wells in the array configuration. The display further includes a plurality of electrodes disposed within respective wells and spaced from one another. The display may further include first, second, and third organic light emitting layers in at least one of the plurality of wells, each layer having a first, second, and third emission wavelength ranges, respectively. The number of electrodes disposed in the well associated with the first and second organic light emitting layers is different from the number of electrodes disposed in the well associated with the third organic light emitting layer.

According to another exemplary embodiment, the present invention contemplates an organic light emitting display comprising a shield structure disposed on a substrate, wherein the shield structure comprises a plurality of wells, for example a first well, a second well , And a third well. The display includes a first plurality of electrodes disposed within a first well and associated with other pixels, a second plurality of electrodes disposed within a second well and associated with another pixel, and at least one third electrode disposed within a third well Wherein the number of electrodes disposed in the first and second wells, respectively, is different from the number of electrodes disposed in the third well. The display includes a first layer having a first emission wavelength range disposed in a first well, a second organic emission layer having a second emission wavelength range disposed in a second well, and a third emission wavelength range And a third organic light emitting layer having a second organic emission layer.

According to various other exemplary embodiments, a pixel layout form may be configured to extend the lifetime of the device. For example, the sub-pixel electrode size may be based on the corresponding organic light emitting layer wavelength range. For example, the sub-pixel electrode associated with light emission in the blue wavelength range may be larger than the sub-pixel electrode associated with light emission in the red or green wavelength range. In general, organic layers associated with blue light emission in OLED devices have a shorter lifetime than organic layers associated with red or green light emission. In addition, an operating OLED element for obtaining a reduced brightness level increases the lifetime of the device. To achieve a relative brightness lower than the brightness of the red and green sub-pixels (e.g., by adjusting the current supplied when addressing the sub-pixels in a manner familiar to those of ordinary skill in the art) In addition to that, by increasing the emission area of the blue sub-pixels relative to the red and green sub-pixels, the blue sub-pixels are still balanced with the lifetime of the sub-pixels of different colors, while still providing the proper overall color balance of the display You can do better. This improved lifetime balance can extend the lifetime of the blue sub-pixels, thereby increasing the overall lifetime of the display.

Figure 2 shows a partial plan view of one exemplary pixel arrangement of an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display 100 in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. Figure 3A shows a cross-sectional view along section 3A-3A shown in Figure 2 of one exemplary embodiment of a substrate, showing various structures for forming an OLED display. Figure 3B shows a cross-sectional view along section 3B-3B shown in Figure 2 of one exemplary embodiment of a substrate showing various structures for forming an OLED display.

The OLED display 100 includes a plurality of pixels formed by, for example, dashed boundaries 150, 151, 152 that, when selectively driven, emit light that can produce an image to be displayed to a user It is common. In a full color display, pixels 150, 151, 152 may comprise a plurality of sub-pixels of different colors. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the pixel 150 may include a red sub-pixel R, a green sub-pixel G, and a blue sub- As shown in the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 2, the sub-pixels need not be the same size, but may be the same size in the exemplary embodiment. Pixels 150, 151, 152 are defined by driving a circuit that causes light emission, so that no additional structures necessarily form a pixel. Alternatively, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention contemplates various novel arrangements of pixel forming structures that may be included within the display 100 to delineate a plurality of pixels 150, 151, 152. Those of ordinary skill in the art are familiar with the materials and arrangements of conventional pixel-forming structures used to provide crisper diagrams between pixels and sub-pixels.

Referring further to FIGS. 3A and 3B in FIG. 2, the OLED display 100 may include a substrate 102. The substrate 102 may be any rigid or flexible structure that may include one or more layers of one or more materials. The substrate 102 may include, for example, glass, polymer, metal, ceramic, or a combination thereof. Although not shown for brevity, the substrate 102 may include additional electronic components, circuits, or conductive members that will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. For example, a thin film transistor (TFT) (not shown) may be formed on the substrate before any of the other structures are deposited (discussed in more detail below). For example, a TFT may include at least one of an active semiconductor layer, a dielectric layer, and a thin film of a metal contact, and one of ordinary skill in the art will be familiar with the material used in making such a TFT. Any of the active OLED layers can be deposited to conform to any topography created by TFTs or other structures formed on the substrate 102, as discussed below.

A confinement structure 104 may be disposed on the substrate 102 such that the confinement structure 104 forms a plurality of confinement wells. For example, the containment structure 104 may be a bank structure. A plurality of sub-pixels may be associated with each of the confinement wells, and all sub-pixels associated with the confinement wells by the organic luminescent material deposited in each confinement well may have the same emission color. For example, in the arrangement of FIG. 2, the confinement well 120 may receive a drop of OLED ink associated with a sub-pixel that emits red light represented by R, and the dark well 130 is labeled G Pixels can receive drops of OLED ink associated with sub-pixels that emit green light and confinement wells 140 can receive drops of OLED ink associated with sub-pixels that emit blue light, It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that, as will be discussed further below, the confinement well may accommodate other various active OLED layers, non-limiting examples, for example, additional organic luminescent materials and hole conduction layers.

The confinement structure 104 may form the confinement wells 120, 130, 140 to confine materials associated with a plurality of sub-pixels. In addition, the confinement structure 104 may prevent diffusion of the OLED ink into adjacent wells and / or assist the loading and drying process (through appropriate geometry and surface chemistry) to ensure that the deposited film is bounded by the confinement structure 104 And can be continuous within the area to be built. For example, the edges of the deposited film may contact the containment structure 104 surrounding the confinement wells 120, 130, 140. The containment structure 104 may be a single structure or may comprise a plurality of discrete structures forming the containment structure 104.

The confinement structure 104 may be formed of a variety of materials, such as photoresist materials, such as photoimageable polymers or photosensitive silicon dielectrics. The confinement structure 104 may be substantially inert to the corrosion action of the OLED ink after processing, have low gas outgassing, have a shallow (e.g., <25 degrees) sidewall slope at the edge of the dark well, and / Or OLED ink to be deposited in the confinement well, and may be selected on the basis of the desired application. Non-limiting examples of suitable materials are PMMA (poly-methyl methacrylate), PMGI (poly-methyl glutarimide), DNQ-Novolac (different phenol formaldehyde resins and chemical diazonaphthoquinone (conjugation with diazonaphthoquinone), SU-8 resist (a widely used commercialized epoxy-based resist manufactured by MicroChem Corp.), a fluorinated version of a conventional photoresist and / or the above-mentioned materials listed herein , And organic-silicon-based resists, each of which may be further bonded to one another or combined with one or more additives to further tune the desired properties of the barrier structure 104.

The containment structure 104 may form a confinement well having any shape, shape, or arrangement. For example, the confinement wells 120, 130, and 140 may have any shape, such as rectangular, square, circular, hexagonal, or the like. The confinement wells in a single display substrate may have the same shape and / or size or different shapes and / or sizes. The confinement wells associated with different luminescent hues may have different or the same shape and / or size. In addition, adjacent confinement wells may be associated with alternating luminescent hues, or adjacent confinement wells associated with the same luminescent hue. In addition, the confinement wells may be arranged in columns and / or rows, where the columns and / or rows may have a uniform or non-uniform alignment.

The confinement well can be formed by various manufacturing methods such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, spray coating, screen printing, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition methods) Any additional patterning that may be formed using any and is not otherwise obtained during the deposition technique may be used for shadow masking, one or more photolithographic steps (e.g., photoresist coating, exposure, development, and stripping) , Wet etching, dry etching, lift-off process, or the like.

As shown in FIG. 2, the confinement structures 104, 120, 130, 140 according to various exemplary embodiments are formed by a plurality of pixels 150, 151, . For example, pixel 150 includes red sub-pixel R, green sub-pixel G, and blue sub-pixel B, which are respective portions of different confinement wells 120, 130, Each of the confinement wells 120,130 and 140 may include a plurality of electrodes (e.g., 106,107, 108,109, 136,137, 138,139, 142,144) The electrodes in the confinement wells 120, 130, and 140 are spaced apart from each other such that a gap S is formed between the electrodes. In an exemplary embodiment, the gap S may be of sufficient size to electrically isolate one electrode from any adjacent electrodes, and specifically, the active electrode regions of adjacent electrodes may be isolated from each other. The gap or space S can reduce current leakage and improve sub-pixel formation and overall pixel formation.

Although omitted for purposes of clarity and convenience of explanation, a driver circuit may be disposed on the substrate 102, and such circuitry may be located below the active pixel region (i.e., the luminescent region) or the non-active pixel region . In addition, although not shown, a circuit may also be disposed below the confinement structure 104. A drive circuit may be connected to each electrode, and each electrode may be selectively and independently addressed to another electrode in the confinement well. Areas of non-uniform topography caused by the gap S between the electrodes are described in greater detail below.

Each electrode 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 144 in the confinement wells 120,130, 140 may be associated with different sub-pixels. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the confinement well 120 may be associated with red emission. Electrodes 106,107,108 and 109 may be disposed within confinement well 120 and each electrode may be operable to address sub-pixels of different pixels (e.g., illustrated pixels 151 and 152) Do. At least two electrodes may be located within each of the confinement wells 120, 130, 140. The number of electrodes disposed in each of the confinement wells 120, 130, and 140 may be the same as or different from that of the confinement wells. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the confinement well 140 may include two sub-pixel electrodes 142 and 144 associated with blue light emission and the dark well 130 may include four Sub-pixel electrodes 136, 137, 138,

In an exemplary embodiment, the containment structure 104 may be disposed on a portion of the electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 3a and 3b, the confinement well 120 may be formed by a confinement structure 104 wherein the confinement structure 104 is partially disposed over a portion of the electrodes 106 and 108, But is partially disposed directly on the substrate 102 instead of above. Alternatively, the confinement structure 104 may be disposed on the substrate 102 between the electrodes of adjacent confinement wells. For example, the confinement structure 104 is disposed within the space formed between the electrodes associated with different sub-pixel emission colors on the substrate 102 such that the confinement structure 104 is disposed directly on the substrate 102, As shown in FIG. In such a configuration (not shown), the electrodes corresponding to the sub-pixels may be placed directly adjacent to the confinement structure 104, or the electrodes may be spaced from the confinement structure 104 to achieve sub-pixel formation.

When a voltage is selectively applied to the electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142 and 144, May occur. The electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 144 may be transparent or reflective and may be made of a conductive material such as metals, mixed metals, alloys, metal oxides, mixed oxides, Or a combination thereof. For example, in various exemplary embodiments, the electrode may be made of indium-tin-oxide manganese, or aluminum. The electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 144 may have any shape, arrangement, or configuration. For example, referring to FIG. 3A, the electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142 and 144 may be configured such that the side edges 106b and 108b of the electrode are tilted And / or may be round and have a profile such that the upper surfaces 106a, 108a may be substantially coplanar and parallel to the surface of the substrate 102.

It is clear that the active portion of the electrode, i.e., the portion associated with the light emission, is the portion of the electrode disposed directly below the deposited OLED layer, without any intervening material insulating the substrate structure between the electrode surface and the OLED layer. 3A, a portion of the electrodes 106 and 108 disposed under the confinement structure 104 is excluded from the active portion of the electrode region, while the rest of the region of the electrodes 106 and 108 Portion is included in the active portion of the electrode region.

The electrodes can be deposited in a variety of ways, for example, by thermal evaporation, chemical vapor deposition, or sputtering methods. Patterning of the electrodes can be obtained, for example, using shadow masking or photolithography. As noted above, various cross-sectional views are shown, such as topography, as best shown in Fig. 3A, is formed on the substrate 102. The electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139 142, and 144 have a thickness and are spaced apart from each other. In an exemplary embodiment, electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142 and 144 may have a thickness of 60 nm to 120 nm, Or a smaller thickness is also possible.

One or more active OLED layers may be provided in each of the confinement wells 120, 130 and 140, for example, the hole conduction layer 110 and the organic light emitting layer 112 shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B. The active OLED layer has a thickness of the electrodes 106, 107, 108, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 144 in the confinement wells 120, 130, 140, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; of &lt; / RTI &gt; For example, the active OLED layer may be continuous within the wall and may have a thickness sufficient to conform and conform to the final topography of the underlying electrode structure disposed within each of the confinement wells.

Thus, the deposited OLED layer can derive surface topography that is parallel to the substrate and does not lie in a single plane that spans the entire confinement well. For example, one or both of the OLED layers 110 and 112 may be formed in a single plane of the display (e.g., a single plane of the display 102) due to relative recesses or protrusions associated with any surface features, Planar &lt; / RTI &gt; and intended for a plane that is parallel to the substrate 102). As shown, the OLED layers 110 and 112 may be sufficiently compliant to the underlying surface feature topography so that the top surface of the OLED layer has a final topography that follows the topography of the underlying surface features. In other words, each deposited OLED layer is sufficiently compliant with all underlying layers and / or surface features disposed on the substrate 102 such that the underlying layer is deposited and then deposited on the final non-planar top surface of the OLED layer Contributing to topography. In this way, the existing surface features from the electrodes, circuits, pixel-forming layers, etc. in the confinement well in the plane above the confinement well parallel to the plane of the display cause the layer (s) to rise and / As it is lowered, discontinuity of the layer 110 or 112 or both may occur. It is not necessary for the active OLED layers 110 and / or 112 to be fully compliant with the underlying surface topography (e.g., there may be local unevenness in thickness, such as around the edge region as described below) Sufficient conformal coating without substantial material buildup or depletion can promote a more uniform, uniform, reproducible coating.

As shown in FIG. 3A, each of the layers 110, 112 (or 110, 112) are arranged such that each layer is disposed over substantially all of the surface features (e.g., sub-pixel electrodes, May be substantially continuous within the total confinement well 120 where the edge of each layer contacts the confinement structure 104 surrounding the confinement well 120. In various exemplary embodiments, an active OLED layer material is deposited to form a fully discrete continuous layer within the confinement well to substantially prevent any discontinuities in the well (i. E., Areas within the well where the active OLED layer material has disappeared) . This discontinuity can result in undesirable visible artifacts in the emission area of the sub-pixels. Despite the fact that each of the layers 110 and 112 is substantially continuous in the confinement well, it is possible to achieve a sufficient degree of conformity to the existing topography of the feature disposed in the confinement well where the layer is deposited, There is therefore a discontinuity in a single plane. For example, in an exemplary embodiment, when the elevated portion and / or the descending portion is greater than the thickness of the thinnest portion of the deposited layer in the well, such as 50 nm, for example, 100 nm, It will not be continuous in a plane parallel to the display.

Layers 110 and 112 may have a substantially uniform thickness in each of the confinement wells, which may provide more uniform luminescence. For the purposes of this application, a substantially uniform thickness may refer to an average thickness of the OLED layer over a planar surface area, for example, over the active electrode area, but minor variations in thickness, such as described below, And may include non-uniform portions. The variation in the average thickness of the OLED layer relative to the substantially uniform OLED coating is less than +/- 20%, such as less than +/- 10% or +/- 5%, for example, above the planar surface area (e.g., 106a, 108a) % &Lt; / RTI &gt;

However, as noted above, localized non-uniformity of thickness may occur in the portion of the layer 110, 112 surrounding the altered portion of the surface topography and / or surface chemistry, where, in this region, And may have a parameter deviation of substantially ± 20%, ± 10%, or ± 5%. For example, a localized non-uniformity in the thickness of the continuous layer may be provided to a surface feature disposed on the substrate 102 and / or to a surface feature disposed on the substrate 102, such as a confinement well structure (e.g., 104b, the edge of the pixel forming layer (described below), the electrode edge sidewall (e.g., the edge sidewall along 106b, 108b), or where the electrode meets the substrate surface. Localized non-uniformity can lead to variations in film thickness. For example, the localized nonuniformity can be offset from the thickness of the layers 110 and 112 provided over the active electrode regions (e.g., along 106a and 108a) of the electrodes 106 and 108. [ The nonuniform portion may include a generally localized " edge effect " deviation in the range of about 5 [mu] m to 10 [mu] m around such surface feature, which is disposed on the substrate 102 in the darkness well, Lt; / RTI &gt; In the present application, such " edge effect " deviations are intended to be included when describing an OLED film coating with a " substantially uniform thickness &quot; in the well.

In an exemplary embodiment, due to the dip in the film formed when the layer traverses the gap between the active areas of the electrodes, the top surface of each layer is in a single plane parallel to the plane of the display (i.e., The thickness of each of the layers 110 and 112 may be equal to or less than the thickness of the electrode. This is illustrated, for example, in FIG. 3A, wherein the dashed line is provided to show a plane P that is parallel to the plane of the substrate 102. As shown, each of the layers 110 and 112 may have a substantially uniform average thickness in the region of the layers 110 and 112 that terminate in the active electrode regions of the electrodes 106 and 108. However, the layers 110 and 112 may be smaller in areas associated with topography changes, such as those caused by features around the edges of these surface features (e.g., the edges of the electrodes 106 and 108 adjacent the gap) The localized non-uniform thickness of the layer.

Layers 110 and 112 may be deposited using any fabrication method. In an exemplary embodiment, a hole conduction layer 110 and an organic light emitting layer 112 may be deposited using an inkjet printing technique. For example, the material of the hole conducting layer 110 may be mixed with the carrier fluid to form an inkjet ink that is formulated to provide a reliable and uniform loading into the confinement well. The ink for depositing the hole conduction layer 110 can be transferred from the inkjet head nozzle to the inside of each confinement well at a high speed. In various exemplary embodiments, the same hole-conducting material may be delivered to all of the confinement wells 120,130, 140 to provide deposition of the same hole-conducting layer 110 in all of the confinement wells 120,130, 140 . After the material is loaded into the confinement well to form the hole conducting layer 110, the display 100 may be dried to allow any carrier fluid to evaporate, which may cause the display to become heated, Or &lt; / RTI &gt; After drying, the display may be baked at an elevated temperature to treat the deposited film material, e.g., to alter the quality of the deposited film or a chemical reaction or film form that is beneficial to the overall process. The material associated with each organic light emitting layer 112 may be mixed with a carrier fluid, such as an organic solvent or a mixture of solvents, to form an inkjet ink that is formulated to provide a reliable and uniform loading into a confinement well have. These inks can then be inkjet deposited using an inkjet process in a suitable confinement well 120, 130, 140 associated with the respective luminescent hue. For example, the ink associated with the red organic light emitting layer, the ink associated with the green organic light emitting layer, and the ink associated with the blue organic light emitting layer are individually deposited into the corresponding confinement wells 120,130, 140. Different organic light emitting layers 112 may be deposited simultaneously or sequentially. After loading one or more of the inks associated with the organic light emitting layer, the display can be dried and baked similar to that described above for the hole conducting layer.

Although not shown, additional active OLED layers of material can be deposited in the confinement wells. For example, OLED display 100 may further include a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, an electron blocking layer, a hole blocking layer, an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, a moisture protection layer, an encapsulation layer, All of which are familiar to the ordinary skilled artisan of the sale, and thus are not described in detail herein.

The hole conduction layer 110 may include one or more layers of material promoting the injection of holes into the organic light emitting layer 112. For example, the hole conducting layer 110 may comprise a single layer of a hole conducting material, such as a hole injecting layer. Alternatively, the hole conducting layer 110 may comprise a plurality of layers, such as a hole injection layer, such as poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene: poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) , Such as at least one of N, N'-di- ((1-naphthyl) -N, N'-diphenyl) -1,1'-biphenyl) -4,4'-diamine can do.

The organic light emitting layer 112 is formed on the hole conduction layer 110 so that the organic light emitting layer 112 sufficiently conforms to the topography generated by the electrode, the space between the electrodes, and the topography of the hole conduction layer. &Lt; / RTI &gt; The organic light emitting layer 112 may include a material for promoting light emission, for example, an organic light emitting material (organic luminescent material).

In an exemplary embodiment, the range of thickness of the OLED stack (e.g., all active OLED layers deposited on electrodes in a confinement well) may be between 10 nm and 250 nm. For example, the hole transport layer may have a thickness of 10 nm to 40 nm, the hole injection layer may have a thickness of 60 nm to 150 nm, and the organic light emitting layer may have a thickness of 30 nm to 150 nm And, optionally, the hole blocking layer, the electron accepting layer, and the electron injecting layer have a bonding thickness of 10 nm to 60 nm.

In an exemplary embodiment, it is contemplated that a drop having a volume of less than about 10 pL may be used to generate each of the layers 110,112. In various exemplary embodiments, a drop volume of 5 pL or less, 3 pL or less, or 2 pL or less can be used. OLED layers 110 and 112 may be formed using a drop of 1 to 20 drops having the volume described above.

In one non-limiting exemplary embodiment, the present invention is based on the assumption that the area of the wells 120, 130, 140 associated with red, green, or blue light emission (e.g., pitch = 78 um) for a display having a resolution of 326 ppi Consider a confinement well arranged to be 66 [mu] m x 66 [mu] m, wherein the width between adjacent wells in this embodiment may be 12 [mu] m. The area associated with the red or green sub-pixel emission may be 31.5 mu m x 31.5 mu m and the area associated with the blue sub-pixel emission may be 66 mu m x 30 mu m so that the conventional RGB side- Leads to an overall pixel fill factor of 65% when compared to a 46% fill factor for the bi-side layout. In another non-limiting exemplary embodiment, in the case of a display having a resolution of 440 ppi (e.g., pitch = 58 μm), the area of the wells 120, 130, 140 associated with red, green, It is contemplated to arrange the confinement wells so that they are x 46 microns, i.e., in this embodiment, the width between adjacent wells is 12 microns. The area associated with the red or green sub-pixel emission of this display structure may be 20.3 占 퐉 x 20.3 占 퐉, while the area associated with the blue sub-pixel emission may be 76 占 퐉 x 49.1 占 퐉, Compared to the 30% fill factor for the described conventional RGB side-by-side layout, a fill factor of approximately 46% can be generated. In this embodiment, the width between adjacent wells may be 12 [mu] m, but as mentioned above, this width may have a different value, and in the case where a smaller value is desired For higher ratios), constraints on the formation of well structures and circuit layout constraints can effectively set the lower bound on these dimensions. While a value of 12 占 퐉 is chosen as a representative value for these examples, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that within the scope of the present invention, other dimensions, such as larger dimensions, such as 20 占 퐉, , E.g., 8 [mu] m, 6 [mu] m, or even 1 [mu] m may be used. It will be further appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that, in the above example, each of the red, green, and blue confinement wells have the same dimensions, but other arrangements are possible. For example, if two confinement wells associated with different luminescent hues can have the same dimensions, and one confinement well associated with another different luminescent hue has a different dimension, or the confinement well associated with each luminescent hue has a different dimension Lt; / RTI &gt;

These exemplary non-limiting arrangements according to the present invention provide a confinement well with a minimum well dimension of greater than 45 microns, even at ultra-high resolution of 440 ppi, thus allowing a droplet volume of about 10 pL to be used, By making use of the available drop volume from the &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; In addition, the non-limiting exemplary arrangement above increases the pixel fill factor when compared to conventional RGB side-by-side layouts by about 43% and 84%, respectively, for 326 ppi and 440 ppi. More generally, various exemplary embodiments in accordance with the present invention provide an improvement in the fill factor of a high-resolution display fabricated using an inkjet, e.g., an ultra-high resolution display, wherein more than 40% improvement is possible.

As a person skilled in the art, a common electrode (not shown) may be disposed on the organic light emitting layer 112 after deposition. After the common electrode is deposited, the final topography of the common electrode may be sufficiently compliant with the topography of the organic light emitting layer 112. Common electrodes can be deposited using any fabrication technique, for example, vacuum thermal evaporation deposition, sputtering, chemical vapor deposition, spray coating, inkjet printing, or other techniques. The common electrode may be transparent or reflective and formed of a conductive material, such as a metal, a mixed metal, an alloy, a metal oxide, a mixed oxide, or a combination thereof. For example, a thin layer of indium tin oxide or manganese. The range of the thickness of the common electrode may be about 30 nm to 500 nm.

In addition, the common electrode may have any shape, arrangement, or configuration. For example, the common electrode may be arranged as a single sub-pixel or as a discrete layer associated with a single pixel. Alternatively, the common electrode may be disposed over a plurality of sub-pixels or pixels, e.g., over the entire pixel array of the display 100. For example, the common electrode may be a blanket that is deposited within the confinement wells 120, 130, 140 as well as deposited over the confinement structure 104. An additional active OLED layer (not shown for simplicity), such as an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, and / or a hole blocking layer may be deposited over the organic light emitting layer 112 prior to deposition of the common electrode. This additional OLED layer can be deposited by inkjet printing, vacuum thermal evaporation, or other methods.

According to an exemplary embodiment, the OLED element 100 may have a top emissive configuration or a bottom emissive configuration. For example, as shown in FIG. 3A, in the top emission type, the electrodes 106 and 108 may be reflective electrodes and the common electrode disposed on the organic light emitting layer may be a transparent electrode. Alternatively, in the bottom emission configuration, the electrodes 106 and 108 may be transparent and the common electrode may be reflective.

In another exemplary embodiment, OLED display 100 may be a high-performance OLED (AMOLED). The AMOLED display improves display performance compared to passive-matrix OLED (PMOLED) displays, but relies on active drive circuits on the substrate, such as thin film transistors (TFT), and such circuits are not transparent. The PMOLED display has some elements that are not transparent, such as a conductive bus line, but the AMOLED display has substantially more opaque elements. Thus, in the case of a bottom-emitting AMOLED display, the fill factor can be reduced compared to PMOLED, since light can only emanate through opaque circuit elements through the bottom of the substrate. For this reason, it may be desirable to utilize this configuration, since the LED element can be configured on top of this opaque active circuit element using the top emission form for the AMOLED display. Thus, light can be emitted through the top of the OLED element without concern for the opacity of the underlying element. Generally, by using the top light emitting structure, each pixel (e.g., a pixel) of the display 100 can be illuminated by the additional opaque elements (e.g., TFTs, driver circuit components, etc.) deposited on the substrate 102 150 can be increased.

Also, the non-active area of each pixel is limited to a confinement structure, surface feature, and / or pixel definition layer (an example of which will be described below) formed on the substrate 102 . A conductive grid is disposed on the substrate 102 to prevent undesirable voltage drops across the display 100 that may occur because the transparent top electrode used in the top light emitting OLED structure has a generally low conductivity can do. When the common electrode is a blanket deposited in the confinement wells 120, 130 and 140 and on the confinement structure 104, a conduction grating can be placed in the inactive portion of the substrate 102 and the selected confinement structure 104 And can be connected to the common electrode through the via-holes formed. However, the present invention is not limited to top-emitting active-matrix OLED configurations. The techniques and arrangements referred to herein may be used by any other type of display, e.g., bottom emission and / or passive display, as well as by those of ordinary skill in the art.

In an exemplary embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3A, each of the confinement wells may include a plurality of active sub-pixel regions each spanning W1 and W2, spaced apart by a gap S, and having a width CW It is trapped in a well. The dimensions W1, W2, and CW are primarily related to the pixel pitch, which corresponds to the resolution of the display (e.g., 326 ppi, 440 ppi). The dimensions of the gap S are related to manufacturing techniques and limitations associated with the process, and layout. In general, it may be desirable to minimize the dimensions associated with the gap S. For example, 3 [mu] m may be the minimum dimension, but one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that dimensions up to 10 [mu] m can be achieved with dimensions as small as 1 [mu] m. The height H of the containment structure 104 is related to the process limit rather than the specific display layout or resolution. The exemplary value of the height H of the confinement structure 104 may be 1.5 占 퐉, but in various exemplary embodiments, the height H may range from 0.5 占 퐉 to 5 占 퐉. Referring to FIG. 3B, BW is the width of the containment structure 104 between adjacent wells (e.g., wells 120 and 130 in FIG. 3B). As previously described, it may be desirable to minimize this dimension, and an exemplary value may be 12 [mu] m. However, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that this value may be arbitrarily large (e.g., a few hundred microns), depending on the fabrication technique and process, which may allow for small values for BW in some cases, I will know.

4, a cross-sectional view of an exemplary embodiment of the confinement well 220 of the display 200 is shown. The arrangement of FIG. 4 is similar to that described above with reference to FIG. 3A, where a similar number is used to denote a similar element, except that the 200 series is used unlike the 100 series. As shown, however, the OLED display 200 includes additional surface features 216 that are disposed in a gap S between the electrodes 206, 208.

The surface feature 216 does not provide an electrical current directly into the OLED film disposed thereon so that any structure including a non-active region of the pixel region between the active regions associated with the electrodes 206 and 208 Lt; / RTI &gt; For example, the surface feature 216 may further include an opaque material. As shown in FIG. 4, a hole conducting layer 210 and an organic light emitting layer 212 may be deposited over a portion of such circuit elements, as shown topographically by surface features 216. If the surface features 216 comprise electrical elements, these elements may be further coated with an electrically insulating material to electrically isolate these elements from the OLED film deposited onto the surface features 216.

In an exemplary embodiment, the surface features 216 may include driver circuits, non-limiting examples of interconnects, bus lines, transistors, and other circuits familiar to those of ordinary skill in the art. In some displays, the driver circuit may be proximal to the active region of the pixel driven by such circuitry to minimize complex interconnection and reduce voltage drop. In some cases, the confinement well surrounds the individual sub-pixels, and such circuitry is located outside the confines of the wells area and the circuit will not be coated with the active OLED layer. However, in the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 4 and in the other embodiments described herein, because the confinement well 220 may include a plurality of sub-pixels associated with different pixels, Which may optimize the electrical performance of the drive electronics, optimize the drive electronics layout, and / or optimize the fill factor.

The layers 210 and 212 are designed to conform to the underlying surface feature topography and to have a substantially uniform thickness in the confinement well, The layer 210 and the organic light emitting layer 212 may be deposited into the region formed by the confinement well structure 204 and over the surface features 216. In a configuration in which the surface feature 216 extends over a plane of the upper surface of the electrode by a distance greater than the thickness of one or both of the layers 210 and 212, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; plane. &Lt; / RTI &gt; Thus, one or both of the layers 210, 212 may be non-planar and discontinuous in a plane parallel to the plane of the display due to the protrusion associated with the surface features 216. As noted above, this is illustrated by the dashed lines illustrating a plane P that is coplanar with the surface of the layer 212, for example, disposed over the electrodes 206, As shown, the layer 212 is not planar over the entire confinement well, but rather is sufficiently compliant with underlying underlying topography such that the layer 212 is entirely free of the unevenly-spaced top surface due to the gap region S and the protrusions 216 I have. In other words, one or both of the layers 210, 212 can rise and fall across the confinement well and fully conform to the existing topography of the well before deposition of the layers 210, 212.

Although the surface features 216 are shown as having a greater thickness than the electrodes in FIG. 4, alternatively, the surface features 216 may have a thickness less than or equal to the thickness of the electrodes. 4 that surface features 216 are disposed on substrate 202, surface features 216 may be additionally disposed over one or both of electrodes 206 and 208 . The surface feature 216 may be different for each of the confinement wells in the array, and not all the confinement wells need to include the surface features. The surface feature 216 may further serve as a pixel-forming layer, wherein the opaque properties of the surface features 216 may be used to form a sub-pixel portion or an entire pixel array.

5A and 5B, there is shown a partial cross-sectional view of another exemplary embodiment of a display confinement well according to the present invention. The arrangement of Figures 5A and 5B is similar to that described above with reference to Figures 3A and 3B, wherein a similar number is used to denote a laconic element, except that the 300 series is used instead of the 100 series. However, as shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, the OLED display 300 further includes a definition layer 314. FIG. Forming layer 314 may be deposited on the substrate 302 where the containment structure 304 may be disposed over the forming layer 314. [ In addition, the forming layer 314 may be disposed over the inactive portion of the electrodes 306, 308. The definition layer 314 may be any physical structure having an electrically insulating property that is used to define a portion of the OLED display 300. In some embodiments, the forming layer 314 may be a pixel forming layer that may be any physical structure used to delineate the lines of pixels in the pixel array. The forming layer 314 may also define a line of sub-pixels.

As shown, in an exemplary embodiment, the forming layer 314 may extend over a portion of the electrodes 306, 308 beyond the confinement structure 304. Forming layer 314 may be made of an electrically resistive material to reduce undesirable visible artifacts by forming layer 314 blocking current flow and thus significantly blocking light emission through the edges of sub-pixels. A forming layer 314 may also be provided to have the structure and chemistry to mitigate or prevent the formation of non-uniform portions of the OLED film coating over the edges of the forming layer. In this manner, the forming layer 314 can assist in masking film unevenness that is otherwise contained in the active area of the pixel area and formed around the surface features that would have contributed to the pixel unevenness. For example, the OLED film may occur at the outer edge of each sub-pixel in contact with the confinement well, or at the inner edge of each sub-pixel where the OLED film contacts the substrate surface).

The hole conduction layer 310 and the organic light emitting layer 312 may be deposited in the region formed by the containment structure 304 and on the pixel formation layer, respectively, to form a continuous layer within the confinement well 320. As described above with respect to Figures 3a and 3b, the layers 310,312 may be sufficiently compliant with the overall topography of the confinement well and thus may be formed in the plane of the display, for example as shown by plane P in Figure 5a May have a non-planar surface and / or be discontinuous. As described above with reference to the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 3A, the thickness of the hole conductive layer 310 and the organic light emitting layer 312 may be substantially uniform.

In an exemplary embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, each of the confinement wells may comprise a plurality of active sub-pixel regions, including W1 and W2, which are spaced apart by a gap S and contained within a confinement well having a width CW Where W1, W2, and CW are primarily related to the pixel pitch, as discussed above with reference to Figure 3a. Likewise, the dimensions of gap S are related to fabrication and processing techniques, and layout, where S may have a range from 1 [mu] m to over 10 [mu] m, in an exemplary embodiment, where 3 [ Dimensions. The height H of the confinement structure 304 may be as described above with reference to Fig. Referring to Figure 5B, as noted above, BW is the width of the confinement structure 304 between adjacent wells, and may be selected as described above with reference to Figure 3B.

The dimension T associated with the thickness of the forming layer may vary depending on the manufacturing technique and process conditions and the type of forming layer material used. In various exemplary embodiments, the dimension T associated with the thickness of the forming layer may be 25 nm to 2.5 탆, but 100 nm to 500 nm may be considered the most common range. The dimensions labeled B1, B2 in FIG. 5A and B1, B1 'in FIG. 5A and associated with the range of forming layers up to the edge of the confinement structure 104 may be selected as desired. However, larger dimensions may contribute to the reduction of the fill factor by reducing the size of the available active pixel electrode region. Thus, it may be desirable to select the smallest dimension that will generally perform the desired function to exclude edge unevenness in the active electrode region. In various exemplary embodiments, this dimension may be from 1 탆 to 20 탆, for example from 2 탆 to 5 탆.

Referring now to FIG. 6, a cross-sectional view of an exemplary embodiment of a confinement well 420 of the display 400 is shown. The arrangement of FIG. 6 is similar to that previously described with reference to FIGS. 5A and 5B above, and similar numbers are used to denote similar elements, except that 400 series are used instead of 300 series. As shown, however, the OLED display 400 includes an additional formed layer 416 disposed within a gap S between the electrodes 406 and 408. 6, forming layer 416 may be formed such that a portion of additional forming layer 416 extends over gap S on substrate 402 and over a portion of electrodes 406 and 408 adjacent to the gap , A surface feature having a structure that is slightly different from the surface feature of Figure 4. The additional formation layer 416 may have any topography, and the one shown in FIG. 6 is only an example. A notch 417 may be present on the surface of the additional formed layer 416 that is opposite to the substrate 102, as shown in Fig. The notch 417 may be formed using various methods. For example, during deposition of the additional formation layer 416, the notch 417 may be fabricated such that the layer 416 is generally conformable to any topography, e.g., electrodes 406, 408, Wherein the substantially uniform thickness on the electrodes 406 and 408 and the thickness of the notches 417 and 408 are substantially equal to the thickness of the notches 417 and &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; Is formed. Alternatively, for example, if additional forming layer 416 is deposited using a non-conformal deposition method so that the underlying surface topography is smooth, then notch 417 may be omitted and additional forming layer (s) 416 may have a topography that is substantially planar.

In either form, a hole conduction layer 410 and / or an organic light emitting layer 412 are deposited (as previously described with reference to Figures 3A and 3B, for example) to form layers 410 and 412 May be sufficiently compliant with the topography of the additional forming layer 416 and have a substantially uniform thickness.

The distance between the top surface of the additional forming layer 416 (i.e., the surface opposite the substrate) and the substrate 402 may be greater or less than the distance between the top surface of the electrodes 406 and 408 and the substrate 402 have. Alternatively, the distance between the upper surface of the additional forming layer 416 and the substrate 402 may be substantially the same as the distance between the upper surface of the electrodes 406, 408 and the substrate 402. That is, the thickness of the additional forming layer 416 may be defined to be between the upper surface of the substrate and the upper surface of the surrounding confinement structure 404, or within substantially the same plane as the upper surface of the confinement structure 404. The additional forming layer 416 may be substantially the same height as the electrodes 406 and 408 so that the additional forming layer 416 does not overlap a portion of the electrodes 406 and 408 and fills the gap S therebetween. have.

The hole conduction layer 410 and the organic light emitting layer 412 may extend over a portion of the forming layer 414 extending into the interior of the well 420 beyond the confining structure 404 and the layers 410, Forming layer 416 in the confinement well 420 formed by the second layer 404. The additional forming layer 416 may be made of an electrically resistive material to prevent current flow by preventing light emission through the edges of the sub-pixels and thus reduce undesirable visible artifacts. The forming layer 414 and the additional forming layer 416 may be made of the same material or different materials.

In an exemplary embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, each of the confinement wells includes a plurality of active sub-pixel regions, including W1 and W2, contained within a confinement well separated by a gap S and having a width CW Where W1, W2, CW, and S are primarily related to the pixel pitch, as noted above. As mentioned earlier, 3 [mu] m may be the minimum dimension for S, but one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that dimensions as small as 1 [mu] m to dimensions greater than 10 [mu] m are possible. For example, the height H of the confinement structure 404 may be selected from the ranges described above with reference to FIGS. 3A and 3B.

The dimension T1 associated with the thickness of the forming layer and the dimension T2 associated with the thickness of the additional forming layer may be variable based on fabrication techniques, process conditions, and type of forming layer material used. Thus, the dimension T1 associated with the thickness of the forming layer and the dimension T2 associated with the thickness of the additional forming layer may be 50 nm to 2.5 [mu] m, e.g., 100 nm to 500 nm. The dimensions SB1, SB2, and B2 associated with the extent of the forming layer within the edge of the confinement well can be selected as desired. However, larger dimensions will contribute to the reduction of the fill factor by reducing the size of the available active pixel electrode area. Therefore, it may be desirable to select the smallest dimension that will generally perform the desired function to exclude edge unevenness from the active electrode area. In various exemplary embodiments, this dimension may be from 1 탆 to 20 탆, for example from 2 탆 to 5 탆.

It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that any of the disclosed formation layer configurations can be used in any combination of different ways to obtain a preferred pixel definition configuration, based on the present invention. For example, the forming layer 414 and / or the additional forming layer 416 may be configured to form any pixel and / or sub-pixel region or any partial pixel and / or sub-pixel region, The additional formation layer 414 may be associated with a forming layer that is deposited under any of the confinement structures 404 and the additional forming layer 416 may be associated with any formation between the electrodes in the confinement well, Lt; / RTI &gt; layer. It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the cross-sectional views shown herein are exemplary cross-sectional views and that the present invention is not limited to the specific cross-sectional views shown. For example, although FIGS. 3A and 3B are shown along lines 3A-3A and 3B-3B, respectively, other cross-sectional views taken along other directions, for example, directions orthogonal to 3A-3A and 3B-3B, Can be reflected. In an exemplary embodiment, the forming layer can be used in combination to define a pixel, e.g., pixel 150, 151, 152 shown in FIG. Alternatively, the forming layer may be configured to form sub-pixels such that the forming layer completely or partially surrounds the sub-pixel electrode into the confinement well.

Referring to Fig. 7, there is shown a cross-sectional view of another exemplary embodiment. The OLED display 500 may include a surface feature 516 and a forming layer 514. The arrangement of FIG. 7 is similar to that described above with reference to FIG. 4, wherein like numerals represent similar elements, except that the 500 series is used instead of the 200 series. However, as shown in FIG. 7, the OLED display 500 further includes a forming layer 514 disposed below the confinement structure 504. The forming layer 514 may be any physical structure used to form a portion of the OLED display 500. In one embodiment, the forming layer 514 may be a forming layer, which may be a pixel array with pixels and / or any physical structure used to define lines of pixels in a sub-pixel. As shown, in an exemplary embodiment, the forming layer 514 may extend over a portion of the electrodes 506, 508 beyond the confinement structure 504. Forming layer 514 may be made of an electrically resistive material to reduce undesirable visible artifacts by preventing the forming layer 514 from blocking current flow and thus blocking light emission through the edges of the sub-pixels. In this manner, the forming layer 514 can help mask the film layer non-uniformities formed at the edges of each sub-pixel that may occur due to the edge drying effect. As previously mentioned, the layers 510, 512 are sufficiently conformal to the underlying surface feature topography and have a substantially uniform thickness (e.g., as discussed above with reference to Figures 3A and 3B) An organic light emitting layer 510 and an organic light emitting layer 512 may be deposited.

It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that various arrangements and structures, such as surface features, forming layers, etc., are merely illustrative and other various combinations and arrangements are contemplated and within the scope of the present invention.

8-11, there is shown a partial cross-sectional view of a substrate showing various exemplary steps during an exemplary method of fabricating an OLED display 600. As shown in FIG. Although some fabrication methods will be described below with reference to the display 600, other OLED displays, such as the OLED displays 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 described above, And / or all of them may be used. Electrodes 606 and 608 and surface features 616 may be provided over the substrate 602, as shown in FIG. The electrodes 606 and 608 and the surface 606 may be formed using any manufacturing method such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition methods) Feature portions 616 may be formed and may be formed by using shadow masking, photolithography (photoresist coating, exposure, development, and stripping), wet etching, dry etching, lift- Any additional patterning can be accomplished. Electrodes 606 and 608 may be formed with surface features 616, or electrodes or surface features may be formed first and then formed.

A forming layer 614 and an additional forming layer 618 may then be deposited over the surface features 616 and the electrodes 606 and 608 as shown in Fig. Layers 614 and 618 may be deposited using any method of manufacture, such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition methods), chemical vapor deposition, And any additional patterning that is not otherwise included in the deposition technique can be performed using shadow masking, photolithography (photoresist coating, exposure, development and stripping), wet etching, dry etching, lift-off, Can be obtained. The forming layer 614 may be formed at the same time as the additional forming layer 618, or the layer 614 or 618 may be formed first and then formed.

A forming structure 604 is provided on the forming layer 614. The confinement structure 604 may be formed to form a confinement well 620 that spans a plurality of pixels and surrounds a plurality of sub-pixel electrodes 606 and 608. A confinement structure 604 is formed using an arbitrary manufacturing method such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition method), chemical vapor deposition, And any additional patterning that is not otherwise included in the deposition technique can be achieved by using shadow masking, photolithography (photoresist coating, exposure, development, and stripping), wet etching, dry etching, lift-off, have. In one exemplary technique, as shown in FIG. 10, a barrier structure material can be deposited on the substrate 602 with a continuous layer 604 'and then a portion 605 of the layer 604' is removed The layer may be patterned using a mask 607 to expose the sub-pixel electrodes 606 and 608. After the portion 605 is removed, the resting structure 604 is formed by the remaining material of the layer 604 '. Alternatively, the confinement structure 604 may be formed by actively depositing material so that the deposited confinement structure 604 forms a confinement structure such that it forms a boundary and is formed within the boundaries of the deposited confinement structure 604 .

As shown in FIG. 10, in an exemplary embodiment, each of the confinement wells may include a plurality of active sub-pixel regions including W1 and W2 spaced by the gap S. As mentioned above, the dimensions W1, W2, and CW are mainly related to the pixel pitch. And the dimensions of the gap S are related to the manufacturing techniques and processes, and to the limitations associated with the layout, which can be from 1 탆 to 10 탆 and 3 탆 is an exemplary minimum dimension. The dimensions SB1 and SB2 associated with the extension of the forming layer inside the edge of the confinement well can be selected as needed. However, by reducing the size of the active pixel electrode region that is available, larger dimensions will contribute to the reduction of the fill factor. Thus, it may be desirable to select the smallest dimension to perform the desired function, which generally excludes edge non-uniformity in the active electrode region. In various exemplary embodiments, this dimension may be from 1 탆 to 20 탆, such as from 2 탆 to 5 탆.

As shown in FIG. 11, a hole conducting layer 610 may then be deposited in the confinement well 620 using inkjet printing. For example, an inkjet nozzle 650 may direct droplet (s) 651 of hole conducting material into a target area formed within confinement well 620. The hole conduction layer 610 may further include two discrete layers, such as a hole injection layer and a hole transport layer, which may be sequentially deposited by the ink jet method as described herein. An organic light emitting layer 612 may also be deposited in the confinement well 620 above the hole conducting layer 610 using inkjet printing. The ink jet nozzle 650 can direct the droplet (s) 651 of the organic luminescent material into the target area on the hole conducting layer 610. [ It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that a plurality of nozzles can be implemented to provide a droplet containing a hole-conducting material or an organic luminescent material into a plurality of confinement wells, even though a single nozzle is mentioned with reference to Fig. 11 . It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that in some embodiments, the same or different color of organic luminescent material may be deposited simultaneously from a plurality of inkjet nozzle heads. In addition, droplet ejection and placement on the target substrate surface can be performed using techniques that will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.

In an exemplary embodiment, a single organic light emitting layer 612, e.g., a red, green, or blue layer, may be deposited within the confinement well 620. In an alternate exemplary embodiment, a plurality of organic light emitting layers may be deposited one above the other within the confines 620. When one of the light emitting layers is activated to emit light, the other light emitting layers do not emit light or interfere with the light emission of the first organic light emitting layer. Such an arrangement may be such that the light emitting layers have different light emitting wavelength ranges It can be effective when. For example, a red organic light emitting layer or a green organic light emitting layer may be deposited in the confinement well 620, and then a blue organic light emitting layer may be deposited over the red or green organic light emitting layer. In this way, the confinement well may comprise two different light-emitting layers, but only one light-emitting layer in the confinement well is configured to emit light.

The layers 610 and 612 can be deposited to sufficiently conform to the topography, surface structure 616, additional forming layer 618, and electrodes 606 and 608 of the forming layer 614, as previously described, As described previously, it may have a substantially uniform thickness.

Various aspects described above with reference to Figures 3a-11 for various pixel and sub-pixel layouts in accordance with the present invention may be used, and Figure 2 is only an example and does not limit this layout. Various additional exemplary layouts contemplated by the present invention are shown in Figures 12-18. Various exemplary layouts indicate that there are many ways to implement the exemplary embodiment described herein, and in many cases, the choice of any particular layout will depend on a variety of factors, such as the layout of the underlying electrical circuit, (Which may be shown as rectangular or hexagonal in the illustrated embodiment but may be other forms such as a chevron, circle, hexagon, triangle, etc.), and factors related to the visual appearance of the display Visible and visible artifacts of different configurations and different types of display content, e.g., text, graphics, or moving pictures). Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that a variety of other layouts may be obtained through variations that are within the scope of the invention and are based on the principles described herein. It should be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that, for the sake of brevity, only the shielding structure forming the confinement well is described below as the description of Figs. 12-18, but the surface features, circuits, pixel formation Layer, and other layers may be used in combination with any of the pixel layouts herein.

12 is a partial plan view of an exemplary embodiment of a pixel and sub-pixel layout for an OLED display 700 and is similar to the layout of FIG. 2 and further aspects of the layout are described below. A blocking structure 704, e.g., the bank structure described above, may be provided on the substrate to form a plurality of confinement wells 720, 730, 740 in an arrayed configuration. An organic layer extends through the confinement wells 720, 730 and 740 to a confinement structure 704 surrounding the confinement well. For example, the edge of the layer of the OLED material in each well 720, 730, Each of the confinement wells 720, 730, 740 may comprise a substantially continuous layer of OLED material (represented by a hatched area) so as to be in contact with the substrate 704. The OLED layer may include one or more of providing emission of different emission wavelength ranges, for example, a hole injecting material, a hole transporting material, an electron transporting material, an electron injecting material, a hole blocking material, and an organic luminescent material. For example, the confinement well 720 may include an organic light emitting layer associated with light emission within a red wavelength range and indicated by R, and the confinement well 730 may include an organic light emitting layer 710 associated with light emission within a green wavelength range, And the confinement well 740 may include a sustaining emission layer associated with the emission within the blue wavelength range and indicated by B, The wells 720, 730, 740 can have various arrangements and configurations (e.g., layout) with respect to each other. 12, the confinement well 720 and the confinement well 730 including the red organic light emitting layer R and the green organic light emitting layer G, respectively, are arranged in rows (R ₁ , R ₃ ) in an alternating arrangement do. The rows R ₁ and R ₃ alternate with the rows R ₂ and R ₄ of the confinement well 740 that contains the blue organic light emitting layer B. The confinement wells 720 and 730 may be alternately arranged in rows R ₁ and R ₃ .

A plurality of electrodes 706, 707, 708, 709, 736, 737, 738, 739 and 742, 744 may be disposed within respective confinement wells 720, 730, 740, Color, e.g., sub-pixels associated with red, green, or blue light emission. Pixels 750, 751, 752, and 753 identified by dotted lines in FIG. 12 include one sub-pixel with red emission, one sub-pixel with green emission, and one sub-pixel with blue emission . For example, each of the confinement wells 720, 730, and 740 may be configured such that these associated electrode active areas correspond to the electrode outline shown in FIG. 12 and include a plurality of electrodes 706, 707, 708, 709, 736, 737, 738 , 739, and 742, 744, and are spaced apart from one another. The confinement wells 720, 730, 740 may have different numbers and / or arrangement of electrodes in the confinement well. Alternatively, additional arrangements are possible, for example arrangements with other color sets other than red, green, and blue, such as combinations of colors associated with four or more sub-pixel colors. Other arrangements in which two or more sub-pixels of a single color are associated with a particular pixel are also possible, for example if each pixel is a single red, one green, and two blue sub-pixels, or a plurality of sub- - other combinations of pixels and other combinations of colors. Further, when a plurality of layers of different emissive materials are disposed up and down, different color sub-pixels may overlap each other. As shown in FIG. 12, the sub-pixel electrode may be spaced apart from the structure forming the confinement well. In an alternative embodiment, the sub-pixel electrode may be deposited immediately adjacent to the confinement well structure such that there is no gap between the electrode and the confinement structure. Also, the confinement well may be disposed over a portion of the sub-pixel electrode.

Also, adjacent confinement wells may have different sub-pixel arrangements. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, the confinement wells 720 and 730 include a 2x2 active electrode region arrangement, the confinement well 740 includes a 1x2 active electrode region arrangement, where 2 The active electrode area in the x2 array is the same size square and the active electrode area in the 1x2 array is the same size rectangle. As noted above, the electrodes in different confinement wells may have different surface areas of the active area.

In one exemplary arrangement, the active region associated with the electrode used to address the sub-pixels of the emission in the blue wavelength range B is active in association with the electrode used to address the emission in the red and / or green wavelength ranges R, G It can have a larger surface area than the area. Since the sub-pixels associated with blue light emission, when operating at the same area brightness level, often have a substantially shorter lifetime than the sub-pixels associated with red or green light emission, an electrode associated with the sub- May have a larger surface area than the active area associated with the sub-pixel electrode associated with red or green light emission. By increasing the relative active area of the sub-pixels associated with the blue light emission, it is possible to operate at a relatively low area brightness level while still maintaining the same overall display brightness, so that the lifetime of the sub-pixels associated with the blue light emission and the total lifetime of the display Can be increased. The sub-pixels associated with the red and green emissions associated with the sub-pixels associated with the blue emission may be reduced. Sub-pixels associated with red and green emission may be reduced with respect to sub-pixels associated with blue emission. This can result in a sub-pixel associated with red and green emission that will be driven at a higher brightness level with respect to the sub-pixel associated with the blue emission that can reduce the lifetime of the red and green OLED devices. However, the lifetime of the sub-pixels associated with the red and green emissions may be significantly longer than the lifetime of the sub-pixels associated with the remaining blue sub-pixels associated with the blue emission, and the lifetime of the sub- . Although the active region of the electrode in the confinement well 740 is shown as being arranged in a long direction extending in the horizontal direction in Fig. 12, the electrode can be arranged such that the elongated direction of the electrode extends in the vertical direction of Fig.

The spacing between adjacent confinement wells can be the same or vary through the pixel layout. 12, the spacing b 'between the confinement wells 720 and 730 may be greater than or equal to the spacing f' between the confinement wells 720 and 740 or between 730 and 740. In other words, in the orientation of FIG. 12, the horizontal spacing between adjacent confinement wells in a row may be different from the vertical spacing between adjacent confinement wells in adjacent rows. Also, the horizontal spacing b 'in rows R ₁ and R ₃ may be greater than or equal to the horizontal spacing a' in rows R ₂ and R ₄ .

The spaces (gaps) between the active regions of the electrodes within the respective confinement wells 720, 730, and 740 may be the same or different and may vary depending on the direction of the space (e.g., horizontal or vertical). In one exemplary embodiment, the gaps d and e between the active areas of the electrodes in the confinement wells 720 and 730 may be the same and may be different from the gaps between the active areas of the electrodes in the confinement well 740 . In addition, in various exemplary embodiments, gaps between adjacent active electrode areas in a confinement well are smaller than gaps between adjacent active electrode areas in the same row or in neighboring confinement wells in different rows. For example, each of c, d, and e may be smaller than a, b, or f in Fig.

In Figure 12, there is a gap between the inner edge of each of the confinement wells (e.g., 720) and the outer edges of each active electrode area within the confinement wells (e.g., 706, 707, 708, and 709). However, as shown in Figure 2, according to various exemplary embodiments, this gap may not be provided and the outer edge of each active electrode area may be the same as the inner edge of the darkness well. This configuration may be accomplished, for example, using a structure, e.g., the structure shown in FIG. 3A, wherein the configuration shown in FIG. 12 in which such a gap exists is implemented using, for example, a structure, . However, other structures may also achieve the same configuration shown in Figures 2 and 12.

Pixels 750, 751, 752, and 753 may be formed based on the arrangement of the confinement wells and the corresponding sub-pixel layout. The overall spacing, or pitch, of the pixels 750, 751, 752, 753 may be based on the resolution of the display. For example, the higher the display resolution, the smaller the pitch. Also, adjacent pixels may have different sub-pixel arrangements. 12, pixel 750 includes a red sub-pixel R at the top left portion, a green sub-pixel G at the top right portion, a blue sub-pixel G across most of the bottom portion of the pixel, B &lt; / RTI &gt; Except that the relative portion of the green sub-pixel G and the red sub-pixel G is reversed and the green sub-pixel G is in the upper left portion and the red sub-pixel R is in the upper right portion, The sub-pixel layout of pixel 750 is similar to the sub-pixel layout of pixel 750. Adjacent pixels 752 and 753 below pixels 751 and 750 are mirror images of pixels 751 and 750, respectively. Thus, pixel 752 includes a blue sub-pixel B in the top portion, a green sub-pixel G in the bottom left portion, and a red sub-pixel R in the bottom right portion. And pixel 753 includes a blue sub-pixel in the upper portion, a green sub-pixel in the lower left portion, and a red sub-pixel in the lower right portion.

In an exemplary embodiment of a high resolution display with 326 pixels per inch (ppi) according to Figure 12, a pixel comprising red sub-pixel, green sub-pixel, and blue sub-pixel has a total pitch of 326 ppi 78 &lt; / RTI &gt; x 78 &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; um &lt; / RTI &gt; Reflecting the minimum spacing between the confinement regions according to the prior art, as previously mentioned for this embodiment, it is assumed that a '= b' = f '= 12 μm, D = e = 3 [mu] m as a typical gap between the electrode active regions in the confinement well, assuming that a = b = f = 12 [ The area associated with each of the red and green sub-pixels may be 28.5 microns by 28.5 microns, and the area associated with the blue sub-pixels may be 60 microns by 27 microns. As noted above, the surface area of the blue sub-pixel may be greater than the surface area of each of the red and green sub-pixels to increase the overall display lifetime. This layout consists of a dark well associated with a group of 2 x 2 red and green sub-pixels having dimensions of 66 m x 66 m and a shield associated with a group of 1 x 2 blue sub-pixels having a dimension of 66 m x 66 m You can have a well. These dimensions provide a simple loading of active OLED materials by conventional inkjet printing heads and printing systems, while providing a high resolution display with a high fill factor of over 50%, for example, 53%. These dimensions also provide this feature to structures having a forming layer that can provide improved film uniformity within the active electrode area by blocking current flow through the film area immediately adjacent to the confinement well wall.

In a corresponding exemplary embodiment for a high resolution display with 440 pixels per inch (ppi), a pixel comprising a red sub-pixel, a green sub-pixel, and a blue sub-pixel has a total dimension of approximately 58 μm × 58 μm And assuming the same values for the dimensions a, b, c, d, e, f, a ', b', and f 'as in the immediately preceding example, the red and green sub- The area may be 18.5 [mu] m x 18.5 [mu] m, and the area associated with the blue sub-pixels may be 40 [mu] m x 17 [mu] m. As described above, the surface area of the blue sub-pixel may be larger than the area of each of the red and green sub-pixels to increase the overall display lifetime. This layout includes a dark well associated with a group of 2 x 2 red and green sub-pixels having a dimension of 46 mu m x 46 mu m, and a shield associated with a group of 1 x 2 blue sub-pixels having a dimension of 46 mu m x 46 mu m You can have a well. These dimensions provide a relatively simple loading of active OLED materials by conventional inkjet printing heads and printing systems while also providing high resolution displays with a high fill factor of 40%.

In each of the above exemplary embodiments, various values for the dimensions a, b, c, d, e, f, a ', b', f ' However, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that these dimensions vary. For example, the spacing a ', b', f 'between the confinement wells can be different, for example from 1 μm to several hundred microns for large ppi. The gap between the active electrode areas in the confinement wells (c, d, e) may vary, for example, as previously mentioned, from 1 m to several tens of microns. It is also possible to vary the gap between the active electrode area and the edge of the confinement well (the difference between a 'and a, the difference between b' and b, the difference between f 'and f being effective) Mu m to 10 mu m. In addition, since these dimensions are variable, constraints are imposed with ppi (which forms the entire pitch of the display) that limits the range of values used for the dimensions of the confinement well and the active electrode area contained therein. In the foregoing exemplary embodiment, for the sake of brevity, a rectangular oblong well of the same dimensions is used for all three colors. However, it does not have to be a square and all need not be the same size. In addition, although the dimensions provided in FIG. 12 refer to various common dimensions, such as active electrode area gaps in red confinement wells and green confinement wells, in some exemplary embodiments, these gaps are not common dimensions and may be different.

13 is a partial plan view of another exemplary pixel / sub-pixel layout of the OLED display 800. As shown in FIG. Features common to the above-mentioned exemplary embodiments are not described. The differences will be explained for brevity.

The display 800 may have greater spacing between the active areas associated with the sub-pixel electrodes in the dark well than, say, the sub-pixel electrode of the display 700, as shown in FIG. The spacing between adjacent active areas associated with electrodes 806, 807, 808, 809, 836, 837, 838, 839, and 842, 844 in each of the confinement wells 820, 830, May be greater than the spacing between the electrode regions. For example, the active areas associated with electrode 836 may be spaced apart from each other by a specified distance g, and so is the active area associated with electrode 838. The spacing k between adjacent active electrode areas in adjacent confinement wells 820 and 830 may be less than the spacing g between active areas associated with electrodes 836 and 838 and the spacing m between active areas associated with electrode 842 (And also in the case of electrode 844) may be greater than the spacing n between adjacent active electrode regions in the confinement well 840 and the confinement wells 820, 830. This spacing can provide a greater spacing between the sub-pixel electrodes that are disposed in one confinement well and associated with the same emission color while providing a closer arrangement of sub-pixel electrodes associated with one formed pixel. This spacing can reduce undesirable visible artifacts so that the display looks like an array of closely aligned RGB terraces, and the closely aligned RRRR element, GGGG element, BB is not visible as an array of elements.

Another exemplary pixel / sub-pixel layout for a display in accordance with the present invention is shown in Fig. A shielding structure 904 may be provided on the substrate to form a plurality of confinement wells 920, 930, 940 in an array configuration. The edge of the organic layer extends through the confinement wells 920, 930 and 940 to a confinement structure 904 surrounding the confinement well and the edge of the layer of OLED material in each well 920, 930, 940, Each of the confinement wells 920, 930, 940 may comprise a substantially continuous layer (shaded area) of the OLED material so that it can contact the confinement structure 904. The active OLED layer may include one or more of providing a different emission wavelength range, such as, but not limited to, a hole injection material, a hole transport material, an electron transport material, an electron injection material, a hole blocking material, . For example, the confinement well 920 may comprise an organic luminescent layer associated with luminescence in the red wavelength range R, the confinement well 930 may comprise an organic luminescent layer associated with luminescence in the green wavelength range G, (940) may include an organic light emitting layer associated with light emission within the blue wavelength range B. The organic light emitting layer may be disposed in a well in any arrangement and / or configuration. For example, the organic light emitting layers disposed in the confinement wells 920, 930, 940 are arranged to have alternating configurations within each row. Adjacent rows may have the same or different arrangements. Also, adjacent rows of confinement wells 920, 930, 940 are shown with a uniform alignment, but alternatively, adjacent rows of confinement wells 930, 940 may have non-uniform alignment, e.g., offset arrangement . Also, the confinement wells 920 and 930 can be reversed in an alternating pattern.

The shape of each well 920, 930, 940 may have a rectangle such that each well is vertically long. The wells 920, 930, 940 may have approximately the same dimensions in an elongated vertical direction. Also, wells 920, 930, and 940 may have approximately the same width. However, the entire well 940 associated with the blue organic light emitting layer is correlated with a single sub-pixel and thus a pixel, and the wells 920 and 930 associated with the red and green organic light emitting layers are associated with the plurality of sub- Can be correlated. For example, the confinement wells 920 and 930 may comprise a plurality of electrodes such that each electrode is associated with a different sub-pixel of a different pixel. As shown in FIG. 14, well 920 includes two electrodes 926 and 928 and is associated with two different pixels 950 and 951.

A different number of electrodes 926, 928, 936, 938, 946 may be disposed in different confinement wells. For example, some confinement wells 920 and 930 may include a plurality of electrodes 926, 928, and 936, 938 to enable selective addressing of electrodes disposed within the same confinement well, Other light confinement wells 940 may include only one electrode 946 to address the electrodes disposed within one confinement well associated with one pixel. Alternatively, the number of electrodes disposed in the confinement well 940 may be half the number of electrodes disposed in other confinement wells 920, 930. Also, the electrodes in different confinement wells may have different surface areas. For example, an electrode associated with light emission within the blue wavelength range may have a larger surface area than an electrode associated with light emission within the red and / or green wavelength range, thereby increasing the lifetime of the display 900 and reducing power consumption.

Pixels 950 and 951 may be formed based on a dark-well arrangement and a corresponding sub-pixel layout. The overall spacing or pitch of the pixels 950, 951 may be based on the resolution of the display. For example, the higher the display resolution, the smaller the pitch. Also, adjacent pixels may have different pixel arrangements. 14, pixel 950 may include a green sub-pixel G located on the left, a blue sub-pixel B located on the center, and a red sub-pixel R located on the right. Pixel 951 may include a red sub-pixel R on the left, a blue sub-pixel B on the center, and a green sub-pixel G on the right.

15 is a partial plan view of an exemplary embodiment of a pixel and sub-pixel layout for an OLED display 1000. FIG. No features common to the above-mentioned embodiments are described (however, a similar label to the 1000 series can be found in Fig. 15). For the sake of brevity, the differences will be explained. The confinement structure 1004 may be configured to form a plurality of wells 1020, 1030, 1040. The wells 1020, 1030, 1040 can be arranged such that the wells 1020, 1030, 1040 are aligned in a uniform row wherein the wells associated with the red and green emissions (e.g., 1020, 1030) And a well associated with blue emission (e.g., 1040) is in a single row. The wells 1020, 1030 and 1040 are also configured so that the wells 1020 and 1040 are aligned with the rows of the wells 1030 and 1040 so that the wells 1020, 1030 and 1040 are aligned in a uniform column. You can alternate. The confinement wells 1020 and 1030 can be alternately configured such that the confinement wells 1030 are alternating patterns.

Each of the confinement wells 1020, 1030, 1040 may be approximately the same size. However, the number of electrodes associated with each well 1020, 1030, 1040 may be different. For example, a well associated with red light 1020 may include electrodes 1026, 1027, 1028, 1029, and a well associated with green light 1030 may include electrodes 1036, 1037, 1038, 1039, and the well associated with the blue light emission 1040 may include electrodes 1046, 1048. Although the electrodes in the confinement well 1040 are shown horizontally spaced apart, the electrodes may be arranged to be vertically spaced apart.

Although electrodes 1026, 1027, 1028, 1029, 1036, 1037, 1038 and 1039 are shown having a square shape in FIG. 15 and electrodes 1046 and 1048 are shown as having a rectangular shape, any shape, such as circular, Electrodes having hexagonal, asymmetric, irregular curved surfaces and the like are contemplated within the scope of the present invention, and a plurality of different types of electrodes in a single confinement well can be realized. Further, the different confinement wells may have different types of electrodes. The size and shape of the electrodes can affect the distance between the electrodes and the overall layout of the display. For example, when the shape is complementary, the electrodes may be spaced closer together, while still maintaining electrical insulation between adjacent electrodes. In addition, the shape and spacing of the electrodes can affect the degree of visible artifacts produced. The electrode shape can be selected to enhance the image blending to reduce visible artifacts and produce a continuous image.

Pixels 1050 and 1051 appearing in dashed lines may be formed based on the arrangement of the confinement wells and the corresponding sub-pixel layout. The overall spacing or pitch of the pixels 1050 and 1051 may be based on the resolution of the display. For example, the higher the display resolution, the smaller the pitch. Also, the pixel may be formed to have an asymmetrical shape. For example, as shown in FIG. 15, pixels 1050 and 1051 may have an " L " shape.

16 shows a partial plan view of an exemplary embodiment of a pixel and sub-pixel layout for an OLED display 1100. In Fig. Features that are common to the above-mentioned exemplary embodiments will not be described (although a similar label with an 1100 series can be found in FIG. 16). The shielding structure 1104 may be configured to form a plurality of confinement wells 1120, 1130, and 1140 with a plurality of rows C ₁ , C ₂ , C ₃ , and C ₄ . The columns C ₁ , C ₂ , C ₃ , C ₄ may be arranged to produce a staggered arrangement. For example, the confinement wells in columns C ₁ and C ₃ can be offset from columns C ₂ and C ₄ to create a staggered row arrangement while maintaining a uniform columnar arrangement. Pixels 1150 and 1151 may be formed based on the pitch of the darkness well arrangement. The pitch of the arrangement of the confinement wells can be based on the resolution of the display. For example, the smaller the pitch, the higher the display resolution. Further, the pixel may be formed to have an asymmetric shape. For example, as shown by the dashed lines in FIG. 16, pixels 1150 and 1151 may have a non-uniform shape.

17 is a partial plan view of an exemplary embodiment of a pixel and sub-pixel layout for an OLED display 1200. FIG. Features common to the previously mentioned embodiments are not described (although a similar label with 1200 series can be found in FIG. 17). As shown in FIG. 17, the shielding structure 1204 may be configured to form a plurality of confinement wells 1220, 1230, 1240. Each of the confinement wells 1220, 1230, and 1240 may have different areas. For example, the well 1220 associated with the red emission R may have a larger area than the well 1230 associated with the green emission G. [ Also, the confinement wells 1220, 1230, 1240 may be associated with a different number of pixels. For example, a confinement well 1220 may be associated with pixels 1251, 1252, 1254, 1256 and a confinement well 1230, 1240 may be associated with pixels 1251, 1252. The wells 1220, 1230 and 1240 can be made up of uniform rows (R ₁ , R ₂ , R ₃ , R ₄ , R ₅ ). The rows R ₂ and R ₃ and R ₅ may be associated with the blue luminescent well 1240 and the rows R ₁ and R ₄ may be associated with the alternating red luminescent well 1220 and the green luminescent well 1230 . The confinement structure 1204 may have various dimensions (D ₁ , D ₂ , D ₃ , D ₄ ). For example, D ₁ may be greater than D ₂ , D ₃ , or D ₄ , D ₂ may be less than D ₁ , D ₃ , or D ₄ , and D ₃ may be approximately equal to D ₄ .

18 shows a partial plan view of an exemplary embodiment of a pixel and sub-pixel layout for an OLED display 1300. FIG. The above-mentioned embodiment, for example, a feature common to the embodiment of Fig. 17 is not described (however, a similar label with 1300 series can be found in Fig. 18). The confinement structure 1304 can be configured to form a plurality of confinement wells 1320, 1330, 1340. The wells 1320,1330 and 1340 can be arranged such that the well 1320 associated with the red emission and the well 1330 associated with the green emission are alternated within a row with the well 1340 associated with the blue emission.

Although a variety of pixel and sub-pixel layouts are described above, the exemplary embodiments do not in any way limit the form, arrangement, and / or configuration of the wells that span a plurality of pixels as described. Instead, the confinement well associated with the present invention allows a flexible pixel layout arrangement to be selected in combination with an ink jet printing manufacturing method.

A variety of pixel layouts are contemplated that can enable high resolution OLED display using inkjet printing. For example, as shown in FIG. 19, a pixel 1450 includes a confinement well 1420 associated with a red emission R, a confinement well 1430 associated with a green emission G, and a confinement well 1440 associated with a blue emission B The shield structure 1404 can generate a hexagonal pattern. Due to the pitch, the shape of the confinement well, and the ability to close the confinement wells close together, an OLED with high resolution can be created using inkjet printing.

Using various aspects in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention, some example dimensions and parameters may be useful when obtaining a high resolution OLED display with an increased fill factor. Table 1-3 includes the expected non-limiting examples and conventional dimensions and parameters in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention associated with an OLED display having a resolution of 326 ppi, wherein Table 1 shows the sub- , Table 2 describes sub-pixels associated with green light emission, and Table 3 describes sub-pixels associated with blue light emission. Tables 4-6 include the conventional dimensions and parameters associated with displays having a resolution of 440 ppi and the expected, non-limiting examples according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, where Table 4 shows the sub- . Table 5 describes sub-pixels associated with green light emission and Table 6 describes sub-pixels associated with blue light emission.

The sub-pixel associated with the red emission of the display with a resolution of 326 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) Area of confinement well (㎛ ² ) Conventional sub-pixels 65.9 10.5 690.7 The sub-pixel associated with the containment structure shown in Figures 3a, 31.5 31.5 989.5 Conventional sub-pixels with pixel-forming layers 59.9 9.0 537.9 The sub-pixel associated with the confinement structure with the forming layer shown in Figures 5a, 5b 28.5 28.5 809.8

Sub-pixels associated with the green emission of the display with a resolution of 326 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) Area of confinement well (㎛ ² ) Conventional sub-pixels 65.9 10.5 690.7 The sub-pixel associated with the containment structure shown in Figures 3a, 31.5 31.5 989.5 Conventional sub-pixels with pixel-forming layers 59.9 9.0 537.9 The sub-pixel associated with the confinement structure with the forming layer shown in Figures 5a, 5b 28.5 28.5 809.8

A sub-pixel associated with the blue emission of the display with a resolution of 326 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) Area of confinement well (㎛ ² ) Conventional sub-pixels 65.9 21.0 1381.4 The sub-pixel associated with the containment structure shown in Figures 3a, 30.0 65.9 1979.1 Conventional sub-pixels with pixel-forming layers 59.9 18.0 1075.9 The sub-pixel associated with the confinement structure with the forming layer shown in Figures 5a, 5b 27.0 59.9 1619.6

A sub-pixel associated with the red emission of the display with a resolution of 440 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) Area of confinement well (㎛ ² ) Conventional sub-pixels 45.7 5.4 248.4 The sub-pixel associated with the containment structure shown in Figures 3a, 21.4 21.4 456.4 Conventional sub-pixels with pixel-forming layers 39.7 3.9 159.2 The sub-pixel associated with the confinement structure with the forming layer shown in Figures 5a, 5b 18.4 18.4 337.2

Sub-pixels associated with the green emission of the display with a resolution of 440 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) Area of confinement well (㎛ ² ) Conventional sub-pixels 45.7 5.4 248.4 The sub-pixel associated with the containment structure shown in Figures 3a, 21.4 21.4 456.4 Conventional sub-pixels with pixel-forming layers 39.7 3.9 156.2 The sub-pixel associated with the confinement structure with the forming layer shown in Figures 5a, 5b 18.4 18.4 337.2

A sub-pixel associated with the blue emission of the display with a resolution of 440 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) Area of confinement well (㎛ ² ) Conventional sub-pixels 45.7 10.9 496.8 The sub-pixel associated with the containment structure shown in Figures 3a, 20.0 45.7 912.8 Conventional sub-pixels with pixel-forming layers 39.7 7.9 312.4 The sub-pixel associated with the confinement structure with the forming layer shown in Figures 5a, 5b 17.0 39.7 674.4

Table 7 includes a predictive, non-limiting example in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention associated with pixels in a display having a resolution of 326 ppi, as well as conventional dimensions and parameters, wherein the pixel is a red sub-pixel, a green sub- , And a green sub-pixel.

Display with resolution of 326 ppi The active area (탆 ² ) The total area of the pixel ([mu] m) Fill factor ^* Conventional closure structures 2762.7 6070.6 46% 3a, 3b, 3958.2 6070.6 65% Conventional confinement structures with pixel-forming layers 2151.8 6070.6 35% 5a and 5b, 3239.2 6070.6 53%

Rounding to Nearest Percentage Points (Active Area / Total Area) As shown in Figure 7, it is contemplated that various exemplary embodiments in accordance with the present invention can achieve a fill factor improvement over conventional confinement structures. For example, a fill factor considering the confinement structure shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B can increase the fill factor by about 43% over the conventional structure, thereby achieving a total fill factor of 65%. In yet another embodiment, the fill factor for a display considering the confinement structure shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B may be improved by about 51% compared to a conventional structure, resulting in a total fill factor of 53%.

Figure 8 includes a predictive, non-limiting example in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention associated with pixels in a display having a resolution of 440 ppi as well as conventional dimensions and parameters, wherein the pixel is a red sub-pixel, , And a green sub-pixel.

Display with resolution of 440 ppi The active area (탆 ² ) The total area of the pixel ([mu] m) Fill factor ^* Conventional closure structures 993.5 3332.4 30% 3a, 3b, 1825.6 3332.4 55% Conventional confinement structures with pixel-forming layers 624.8 3332.4 19% 5a and 5b, 1348.9 3332.4 40%

* (Active area / total area) rounded to nearest percentage points [0064] As shown in Fig. 8, it is contemplated that various exemplary embodiments according to the present invention may result in a fill factor improvement over conventional confinement structures. For example, a fill factor for a display considering the confinement structure shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B may improve the fill factor by about 84% for a conventional structure to achieve a total fill factor of 55%. In yet another embodiment, the fill factor for a display that takes into account the confinement structure shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B can be improved by about 116% compared to a conventional structure, resulting in a total fill factor of 40%.

As mentioned above, various factors can affect the deposition accuracy and uniformity of the organic light emitting layer in OLED display inkjet based manufacturing techniques. These factors may include, for example, the display resolution associated with the rate at which the OLED layer material (e.g., active OLED material) ink and droplets involved in the combination of the OLED layer material and the one or more carrier fluids are deposited, droplet size, target droplet area, Positional error, fluid properties (e.g., surface tension, viscosity, boiling point).

In various exemplary embodiments, instead of providing a plurality of confinement wells formed by a confinement structure (e.g., a bank) surrounding each pixel or sub-pixel, the surface energy (e.g., Liquid-affinity regions and liquid-rejection regions) provides a simple manufacturing process. The use of the bank structure may include additional processing steps for depositing the patterned bank layer. Also, when using a bank structure, it is often necessary to use a patterned deposition method such as an ink jet to deposit various device layers in each sub-pixel common to all sub-pixels. For example, in various embodiments, an RGB OLED structure may be formed by applying a common HIL to each of the red, green, and blue sub-pixels, prior to providing the different red, green, and blue EML coatings to the respective color sub- And a common HTL coating. When bank structures are used, these HIT and HTL coatings are deposited using an inkjet in a patterned manner into each well. However, in this example, a uniform, blanket coating technique may be used to deposit these HIL and HTL layers on all the pixels, and then the fabrication process may be simplified using patterned deposition techniques for EML . The presence of bank structures can increase the difficulty in depositing uniform blanket coatings. As discussed above, there are a variety of challenges for coatings over regions that include relatively small clusters of even pixel electrodes over various structures. To remove the bank structure to form the confinement well and instead to provide the HIL and HTL coatings using blanket deposition techniques and then to hold the EML inks used to form the sub- By using the chemical confinement mechanism to form the liquid-blue zone and the liquid-rejection zone on the upper surface, the manufacturing process can be simplified.

This liquid-affinity and liquid-rejection regions can support compensation for the OLED emission ink drop position error in a manner similar to the bank structure, allowing for a larger margin of acceptable drop position during deposition of the OLED emissive material, Any ink droplets that may partly fall off the boundary between the liquid affinity region and the liquid rejection region are naturally rejected in the liquid-rejection region, prior to drying, which may make the manufacturing process more robust, Can be drawn. In addition, as will be described in more detail below, liquid-affinity region margins can be used to further accommodate potential drop location inaccuracies. As discussed above, high accuracy ink jet heads used in conventional printing techniques can produce droplet sizes ranging from about 1 picoliter (pL) to about 50 picoliter (pL), with about 10 pL being a high accuracy inkjet It is a relatively common size for printing applications. The drop position accuracy of a conventional inkjet printing system is approximately +/- 10 mu m.

In various exemplary embodiments, the hole conducting layer may be configured to create a liquid-affinity region and a liquid-rejection region such that the luminescent layer confinement region corresponds to a liquid affinity region, and the liquid-rejection region serves as a confinement boundary To prevent migration of the deposited material. The luminescent layer confinement region can be formed in consideration of the drying effect associated with the deposition of the organic luminescent material and other active OLED materials. For example, non-uniform edges in the active area of a sub-pixel may produce undesirable visible artifacts. When the luminescent layer confinement regions are formed such that any non-uniform edge is outside the stripe region of the sub-pixels, they can account for edge drying effects. In addition, the luminescent layer confinement region can be individually configured based on the drying effect associated with the organic luminescent material and the respective materials. In addition, additional material and fabrication steps (e.g., formation of a shield structure) may not be required to provide an additional shield structure to form a shielding well associated with each sub-pixel. Additional formation layers, such as pixel-forming layers, may be omitted in some cases, since subsequent deposition of the light-emitting layer confinement regions and the organic light-emitting layer provides for proper formation of sub-pixels and pixels. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the pixel-forming layer can be used with the disclosed embodiment using a confinement region formed by regions of different surface energy.

According to various exemplary embodiments described herein, manufacturing techniques can be implemented by introducing significant flexibility into an OLED manufacturing process. For example, the pixel layout and sub-pixel arrangement may include shapes, arrangements and shapes related to the flexibility achieved in forming these layouts by forming liquid-affinity regions and liquid-rejection regions. Generally, the electrical network on the OLED display is isolated from the active OLED layer, which is outside the confinement well, and addresses the sub-pixel electrodes individually. However, according to the exemplary embodiment described herein, the active OLED layer is deposited on the electrical network within the active area of the substrate to increase the fill factor of each pixel, as well as to improve the electrical performance of the driving electronics .

In an exemplary embodiment in which a confinement structure for forming a confinement well at a pixel / sub-pixel level within the active area of the display can be removed, but forms a confinement area through the surface area of different surface energies, The structure is disposed on the inactive portion of the substrate to form one active-area display well surrounding the entire active area of the substrate. For example, the containment structure may be arranged to surround all of the electrodes associated with the pixels in the image producing part of the display. By locating the confinement structure outside the active pixel region, at the edge of the active OLED layer, non-uniformities due to contact or proximity with the confinement structure can be trapped outside the active display area, minimizing undesirable visible artifacts, The materials used during manufacture can be reduced by preventing such materials from migrating to the inactive areas of the display. In addition, this form can reduce the precision requirements during manufacture. For example, the accuracy of the deposition of active organic materials into specific and precisely contoured regions is no longer critical for the deposition of active OLED layers. When a droplet is deposited to form a hole-conducting layer, such as a hole-injecting layer and / or a hole-transporting layer, all the droplets deposited in one active-region display well combine to create a continuous layer having a substantially uniform thickness can do.

In addition, running a single confinement structure within the inactive portion of the OLED display substrate to form an active-region display well can improve the ease of manufacture of the OLED display. For example, an inkjet nozzle can be used to deposit an active OLED layer in a high resolution display, and any droplet volume change can be made by averaging resulting from the internal mixing of drops to form a single continuous hole conductive film in a confinement region Therefore, it will not affect the overall display quality deposition. For example, a hole conduction layer, such as at least one of a hole injection layer and a hole transport layer, may be deposited over all electrodes in the active area display well in the active area of the substrate. Because of the drop in all liquid merging, the deposition is easy and can have increased uniformity, because the change in drop volume is not important and does not affect the resulting layer. In addition, there is no additional manufacturing step to remove the active OLED layer in the inactive portion of the display, thereby reducing the overall manufacturing process.

According to exemplary embodiments described herein, embodiments using a confinement region formed by regions of different surface energy may include pixel arrays that increase the active area area. For example, a light emitting layer confinement region (formed by the surface region of different surface energy), such as the confinement structure for forming a confinement well at the pixel / sub-pixel level, Pixel &lt; / RTI &gt; associated with the sub-pixel. For example, the emissive layer confinement region may be formed with a plurality of individually addressed sub-pixel electrodes, each sub-pixel electrode associated with various pixels. By increasing the area of the formed light-emitting layer confinement region, the fill factor can be maximized as the ratio of the active region to the total pixel area is increased. Achieving this increase in the fill factor not only enables high resolution in smaller sized displays, but also improves the lifetime of the display.

Also, as described above with respect to the various pixel arrangements described with reference to Figs. 2 and 12-19, embodiments using light emitting layer confinement regions with such pixel layout arrangements can extend the lifetime of the device. For example, the sub-pixel electrode size may be based on the wavelength dispersion of the corresponding organic light emitting layer. For example, the sub-pixel electrode associated with blue light emission may be larger than the sub-pixel electrode associated with red or green light emission. An organic layer associated with blue light emission in an OLED device may have a shorter lifetime than an organic layer associated with red or green light emission. Also, operating the OLED device to achieve a lower brightness level increases the lifetime of the device. By increasing the emission area of the blue sub-pixels for the red and green sub-pixels, it is possible to achieve relative brightness while driving the red and green sub-pixels to achieve a higher brightness than the blue sub- Driving a blue sub-pixel to provide a better balance of the lifetime of the sub-pixels of different colors, while providing a proper and overall color balance of the display. This improved balance of lifetime can improve the overall lifetime of the display by prolonging the lifetime of the blue pixels.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that alternative forms of extending the lifetime of different sub-pixels in addition to blue color are possible. For example, a red sub-pixel may have a larger area than other sub-pixels to extend the lifetime of the red sub-pixel. Alternatively, the green sub-pixels may have a larger area than the other sub-pixels to extend the lifetime of the green sub-pixels. This configuration can also be applied to an OLED display including an OLED display using a liquid-friendly region and a liquid rejection region for forming a confinement region as well as a confinement structure for forming a confinement well.

Referring now to Figures 22-39, exemplary steps for manufacturing an OLED display and OLED display 1900 are shown. Although the fabrication steps are discussed in connection with the display 1900, any and / or all of the steps described herein may be used to fabricate other OLED displays, such as the OLED displays 1500 and 1600 described with reference to Figs. 20 and 21, for example . The OLED display 1900 includes a substrate 1902, a confinement structure 1904, and a plurality of electrodes (not shown), as shown in the plan view of FIG. 22 and shown in cross section along line 23-23dmf of FIG. 1906).

The substrate 1902 may include an active region 1908 and an inactive region 1910 formed by an area including the electrode 1906 (the boundary shown by hatching in Figs. 22 and 23). The substrate 1902 can be a rigid or flexible substantially planar structure and can include one or more layers of one or more materials. Substrate 1902 may comprise, for example, glass, polymer, metal, ceramic, or a combination thereof.

A containment structure 1904 (e.g., a bank) may be disposed on the substrate 1902 such that the containment structure 1904 may form a single active-area display well W. The containment structure 1904 can be formed from a variety of materials, such as photoresist materials, such as photoimageable polymers or photosensitive silicon dielectrics. The containment structure 1904 may be substantially inert to the corrosion action of the OLED ink after the process, have low gas outgassing, have a shallow (e.g., <25 degrees) sidewall slope at the edge of the dark well, and / May comprise one or more organic components which may have phobicity for one or more of the OLED inks to be deposited in the confinement well and may be selected on the basis of the desired application. Non-limiting examples of suitable materials are PMMA (poly-methyl methacrylate), PMGI (poly-methyl glutarimide), DNQ-Novolac (different phenol formaldehyde resins and chemical diazonaphthoquinone (conjugation with diazonaphthoquinone), SU-8 resist (a widely used commercialized epoxy-based resist manufactured by MicroChem Corp.), a fluorinated version of a conventional photoresist and / or the above-mentioned materials listed herein , And organic-silicone-based resists, each of which may be further bonded to each other or combined with one or more additives to further tune the desired properties of the shield structure 1904. [

In addition, the containment structure 1904 assists in the loading and drying process of the active OLED material (through appropriate geometry and surface chemistry) to provide a continuous, uniform &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; One layer can be formed. The containment structure 1904 can be a single structure or can be included in a plurality of separate structures that form the containment structure 1904. The containment structure 1904 may have any cross-section. 22 and having a side edge perpendicular to the substrate 1902 but the containment structure 1904 is angled relative to the surface of the substrate 1902 and / Alternatively.

The confinement structure 1904 may be formed by various manufacturing methods such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, spray coating, screen printing, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition methods) Etc., and any of them. Any additional patterning that is not otherwise obtained during the deposition technique may be used for shadow masking, one or more photolithographic steps (e.g., photoresist coating, exposure, development and stripping), wet etching, dry etching, Off process or the like.

The shield structure 1904, which forms the active-region display well W, may confine the active OLED material deposited on the substrate 1902. For example, the containment structure 1904 may be disposed on the inactive portion 1910 of the substrate 1902 and surround the active region 1908. [ In various exemplary embodiments, for example, as shown in Figures 22-23, the containment structure 1904 may be located outside the active area by a distance D. [ D may be determined based on the edge drying effect and may be selected to minimize undesirable visible artifacts within the active area 1908 of the substrate 1902. [ For example, the containment structure 1904 may be located sufficiently away from any of the electrodes 1906 to prevent any edge drying non-uniformities from contributing to the observed emission from the pixels and to deposit the active OLED material in the well during the fabrication process It is possible to reduce the loading accuracy required for the printing process. At the same time, it is desirable to minimize the width of the inactive area outside the display area and to minimize the width in the area provided for external electrical connection to the display. Minimizing the width of the inactive region provides closer packaging of a plurality of displays on a single substrate sheet, thereby increasing manufacturing efficiency. In addition, by reducing the wasted space in smaller finished display products, it is possible to reduce the width of the bezel outside of the display, which is more desirable.

In an exemplary embodiment, D may range from about 10 [mu] m to about 500 [mu] m, e.g., D may be about 50 [mu] m. The containment structure 1904 may have a width B in the range of about 10 μm to 5 mm, where B may be about 20 μm. In addition, the containment structure 1904 may have a height T in the range of about 0.3 占 퐉 to about 10 占 퐉, where the height may be about 1.5 占 퐉.

A plurality of electrodes 1906 may be provided on the substrate 1902 in the active region 1908 such that when the electrodes 1906 are selectively driven the light may be diverted to produce an image that is displayed to the user. Electrodes 1906 are arranged to form a pixel array such that each electrode 1906 is a different sub-pixel, such as a sub-pixel associated with red light emission, a sub-pixel associated with green light emission, a sub- - can be associated with a pixel. Alternatively, each electrode 1906 may be associated with a pixel that includes a red sub-pixel, a green sub-pixel, and a blue sub-pixel. The electrodes 1906 may have any shape, arrangement, and / or shape. For example, as shown in FIG. 22, the electrode 1906 may be square. Alternatively, the electrode 1906 may have a rectangular, circular, angular, hexagonal, asymmetric, irregularly curved or a combination thereof. The electrode 1906 may have a profile whose top surface is substantially planar and parallel to the major surface of the substrate while the side edge of the electrode may be perpendicular or angled and / have.

The electrode 1906 can be transparent or reflective and can be formed of a conductive material, such as a metal, a mixed metal, an alloy, a metal oxide, a mixed oxide, or a combination thereof. For example, in various exemplary embodiments, the electrode may be made of indium-tin-oxide manganese, or aluminum.

The electrode 1906 may be formed using any fabrication method, such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition methods), chemical vapor deposition . By using shadow masking, photolithography (photoresist coating, exposure, development and stripping), wet etching, dry etching, lift-off, etc., any additional patterning that is not otherwise included in the deposition technique can be accomplished.

The pixel may be formed based on the pitch of the electrode 1906. [ The pitch of the electrodes may be based on the resolution of the display. For example, the smaller the pitch, the higher the display resolution. Pixels can be selected to have any type of arrangement, such as symmetry or asymmetry, to reduce undesirable visible artifacts and improve image blending to produce a continuous image.

Additional electrical elements, networks and / or conductive members may be disposed on the substrate 1902, although omitted for clarity and convenience of description. The electrical components, networks and / or conductive members may include, by way of non-limiting example, interconnects, bus lines, transistors, and other circuits familiar to those of ordinary skill in the art. An electrical element, network and / or conductive member is coupled to each electrode 1906 such that each electrode can be a selectively addressed independence of the other electrode. For example, a thin film transistor (TFT) (not shown) may be formed on substrate 1902 before and / or after depositing any other structure, such as a shield 1904 and / or electrode 1906 . As discussed below, the active OLED layer may be deposited over any electrical component, network, and / or conductive member disposed within the active region 1908 of the substrate 1902.

24, after the electrode 1906 and another network (not shown) including the TFT are deposited, the first hole-conducting material 1911 is doped with active 0 &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; Can be deposited in the area display well W. The first hole-conducting material 1911 may be deposited as one or more layers of material that facilitate the injection of holes into the organic light-emitting layer. For example, the first hole-conducting material 1911 may be deposited as a layer of hole-conducting material, such as a hole-injecting material. Alternatively, the hole-conducting material 1911 can be formed of at least one hole injection material, such as poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene: poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) Hole conductive material.

The first hole conductive material 1911 may be deposited using inkjet printing. For example, an inkjet nozzle 1914 may guide a plurality of droplets 1916 of a fluid composition including a hole-conducting material in the active-area display well W. One skilled in the art will appreciate that although a single nozzle is shown in FIG. 24, a plurality of nozzles may be implemented to deposit a plurality of droplets of the hole-conducting material simultaneously within the active-region display well W. FIG.

The first hole-conducting material 1911 may be mixed with a carrier fluid to form an ink-jet composition that is formulated to provide a reliable, uniform loading in the active-area display well W. Droplets for loading the first hole conductive material 1911 can be transferred from the inkjet head nozzle to the substrate at high speed. The droplets 1916 forming the first hole conductive layer can be removed from the respective wells W from all respective inkjet nozzles in order to merge them to produce a continuous layer having a substantially uniform thickness, Lt; / RTI &gt; The first hole conductive material 1911 may be deposited such that the height of the material may be greater than the height of the containment structure 1904 prior to drying and / or baking, although a height equal to or less than that of the containment structure 1904 may also be used have.

25, the display 1900 may be processed to form the first hole conductive layer 1912 after the hole conductive material is loaded into the active-area display well W. [ For example, the display 1900 can be processed such that any carrier fluid is evaporated from the first hole conducting material 1911, for example, through a drying process. The process may include exposing the substrate 1902 to ambient conditions during heat, vacuum, and / or cycle time. After drying, the substrate 1902 can be baked at elevated temperatures, for example, to treat the deposited film material to introduce chemical reactions or changes to the film morphology, which is beneficial for the overall process or the quality of the deposited film .

The first hole conductive layer 1912 can be substantially continuous within the entire active-region display well W such that the layer 1912 is electrically isolated from all surface features (e.g., 1906, a network (not shown), etc.) and the edge of the layer 1912 can contact the containment structure 1904 surrounding the active-area display well W. Although the layer 1912 is shown with a planar top, the hole conductive layer 1912 can alternatively follow the topography of underlying surface features such as electrodes 1906 and any network (not shown) , The deposited layer can create a non-planar top associated with the underlying surface features in a manner similar to that described above for the exemplary embodiment of Figs. 3-11, following surface topography.

The second hole conductive material 1917 may be deposited in the active-region display well W formed by the shield structure 1904 and on the first hole conductive layer 1912, as shown in Fig. The second hole-conducting material 1917 is a hole-transporting material such as N, N'-di- (1-naphthyl) -N, N'- ). &Lt; / RTI &gt;

As with the first hole-conducting material 1911, the second hole-conducting material 1917 can be deposited using ink-jet printing. For example, an inkjet nozzle 1914 may guide a plurality of droplets 1920 of a fluid composition including a hole-conducting material within the active-area display well W. One skilled in the art will appreciate that although one nozzle is shown in Figure 26, a plurality of nozzles can be implemented to deposit multiple drops of hole conductive material 1920 simultaneously in the active-region display well W. [ In addition, although the inkjet nozzle 1914 is shown to be the same as the inkjet nozzle used to deposit the first hole-conducting material 1911, the inkjet nozzle used to deposit the second hole-conducting material 1917 may be different. Therefore, the droplet volume of the droplet 1920 associated with the second hole conductive material 1917 may be equal to or different from the droplet volume of the first hole conductive material 1916.

The second hole-conducting material 1917 may be mixed with the carrier fluid to form an ink-jet composition that is formulated to provide a reliable and uniform loading in the active-area display well W. The droplet for loading the second hole conductive material 1917 can be transferred from the inkjet head nozzle 1914 to the substrate at a high speed. The droplets 1929 of the second hole-conducting material 1917 are ejected from each of the inkjet nozzles to the well W to form a continuous layer having a substantially uniform thickness, Lt; / RTI &gt; The second hole conductive material 1917 can be deposited such that the height of the material may be greater than the height of the containment structure 1904 prior to drying and / or baking, but the same height as the containment structure 1904 Can be used.

27, after the second hole-conducting material 1917 is loaded into the active-area display well W, the display 1900 is processed to form a second dried hole-conducting layer 1918 can do. For example, the display 1900 may be treated to evaporate any carrier fluid from the second hole-conducting material 1917 through a drying process. The process may include exposing the display to a thermal, vacuum, or atmospheric state for a period of time. After drying, the substrate 1902 can be baked at an elevated temperature to treat the deposited material 1917, for example, to introduce a chemical reaction or change into the film morphology that is beneficial to the quality of the deposited film or the overall process .

The second hole conductive layer 1918 is substantially continuous within the overall active-area display well W such that the layer 1918 is in contact with all surface features (e.g., electrode 206, (Not shown), a first hole conductive layer 1912, etc.) and the edge of the layer 1918 may contact a containment structure 1904 surrounding the active-area display well W.

As shown in FIG. 28, the second hole conductive layer 1918 may be processed to modify the surface energy or affinity of the portion of the second hole conductive layer 1918 for forming the light emitting layer confinement region. For example, a reactive surface-active material may be applied to the surface of layer 1918. In an exemplary embodiment, the reactive surface-active material may be exposed to radiation from a radiation source 1923 through a mask 1922, wherein an opening (not shown) in the mask is in the region of different surface energies For example, a liquid-affinity region and a liquid-rejection region), resulting in a luminescent layer confinement region. In an alternative embodiment, the layer 1918 may further comprise a reactive surface-active material such that the luminescent layer confinement region is formed by exposing the second hole conductive layer 1918 using a radiation source 1923 . In an exemplary embodiment, the mask 1922 can be positioned so that, with respect to electrode 1906, each opening in mask 1922 is aligned based on the width and length of each electrode 1906.

The reactive surface-active (RSA) material may comprise a composition of at least one radiation-sensitive material. When the RSA material is exposed to radiation, the surface energy or affinity of the relevant layer exposed to radiation can be modified. For example, a portion of the layer 1918 associated with the RSA material exposed to radiation is not associated with the RSA material, or exposed to radiation from the light source 1923, in at least one of its physical, chemical, and / And the portion of the layer 1918 exposed to the radiation may have a surface energy or affinity different from that of the portion of the layer 1918 that is not exposed to radiation .

The radiation source 1923 may comprise any source of radiation that, in combination with the RSA material, can be used to modify at least one physical, chemical, and / or electrical property. For example, the radiation source 1923 may include an infrared source, a visible source, an ultraviolet source, and combinations thereof.

The type of radiation used may depend on the sensitivity of RSA. The exposure may be a blanket, an overall exposure, or the exposure may be pattern wise. The term " patternwise " indicates that only a selected portion of a material or layer is exposed. Patternwise exposure can be achieved using any known imaging technique. In one embodiment, the pattern is achieved by exposure through a mask. In one embodiment, the pattern is achieved by exposing only the selected portion with the laser. Exposure times can range from seconds to minutes, depending on the particular chemistry of the RSA used. When a laser is used, a much shorter exposure time is used for each individual area, depending on the power of the laser. The exposure step may be performed in air or an inert atmosphere, depending on the sensitivity of the material.

In one embodiment, the radiation is ultraviolet light include - (10 ⁶ nm 770) and may be selected from combinations thereof, co-treatment and suncheo treatment (10 - - 390nm), visible light (390 770nm), infrared. In yet another embodiment, the radiation may be thermal radiation, such as that performed by heating. The temperature and duration for the heating step change at least one physical property of the RSA without damaging the underlying layer. In an exemplary embodiment, the heating temperature may be 250 [deg.] C and may be less than 150 [deg.] C.

In an exemplary embodiment, the radiation can be ultraviolet or visible light, which can be applied in a patternwise fashion, resulting in exposed areas of the RSA and unexposed areas of the RSA. After pattern wise exposure to radiation, the first layer may be treated to remove exposed or unexposed areas of the RSA.

In another exemplary embodiment, exposure of RSA to radiation can result in a change in the solubility or inferiority of RSA in the solvent. For example, if the exposure is performed in a patternwise fashion, the wet development treatment may follow the exposure step. The treatment may include washing with a solvent that melts, purges, or lifts off one type of region. Patternwise exposure to radiation may result in insolubility of the exposed regions of RSA, and treatment with a solvent may result in the removal of unexposed regions of RSA.

In another exemplary embodiment, exposure of RSA to visible light or UV radiation may result in a reaction that reduces the volatility of RSA in the exposed areas. If the exposure is performed with patternwise, this can follow the heat development process. Such treatment may involve heating to a temperature above the volatilization or sublimation temperature of the unexposed material and below the temperature at which the material is thermally reactive. For example, for polymerizable monomers, the material may be heated above the sublimation temperature and at a temperature below the thermal polymerization temperature. Note, however, that RSA materials with a temperature of thermal reactivity close to or below the volatilization temperature can not be developed in this manner.

In another exemplary embodiment, exposure of the RSA to radiation may cause the material to melt, soften, or change at a flowing temperature. If the exposure is performed with pattern wise, it can follow dry improvement treatment. The drying improvement treatment may include contacting the outermost surface of the element with the absorbent surface to absorb or wick away the softer portion. This drying improvement can be carried out at elevated temperatures, as long as it does not further affect the properties of the original unexposed region.

After the RSA material is exposed to radiation, the physical properties of the layer 1918 may be modified such that the exposed portion has an increase or decrease in surface energy from the unexposed portion. For example, the exposed portion may be a portion of the layer 1918 that is somewhat soluble or insoluble, somewhat tacky, somewhat smooth, somewhat flowable, somewhat liftable, somewhat absorbable, Larger or smaller contact angle with respect to the ink, greater or less liquid-affinity for a particular solvent or ink, and the like. Any physical attributes of layer 1918 may be affected.

The RSA material may comprise one or more radiation-sensitive materials. For example, the RSA material can include olefins, acrylates, methacrylates, vinyl ethers, polyacrylates, polymethacrylates, polyketones, polysulfones, copolymers thereof, and mixtures thereof. The RSA material may further comprise two or more polymerizable groups. When the RSA material comprises two or more polymerizable groups, cross linking may result.

In an exemplary embodiment, the RSA material may comprise at least one reactive material and at least one radiation-sensitive material, wherein the radiation-sensing material comprises an active species that initiates a reaction of the reactive material upon exposure to radiation Can be generated. Examples of radiation-sensitive materials may include, but are not limited to, free radicals, acids, or combinations thereof. In one embodiment, the reactive material may be polymerizable or cross linkable. The material polymerization or cross linking reaction is initiated or catalyzed by the active species. The radiation-sensitive affix is present in an amount of from 0.001% to 10.0% based on the total weight of the RSA material.

In an exemplary embodiment, the reactive material of the RSA material may be an ethylenically unsaturated compound, and the radiation-sensing material of the RSA attachment may generate free radicals when exposed to radiation. The ethylenically unsaturated compounds may include, but are not limited to, acrylates, methacrylates, vinyl compounds, and combinations thereof. Any known class of radiation-sensitive materials that produce free radicals can be used. For example, quinone, benzophenone, benzoin ether, acryl ketone, peroxide, biimidazole, benzyl dimethyl ketal, hardoxyl alkyl phenylacetone, dialkoxy acetophenone, trimethylbenzoylphosphine oxide derivative, Benzoylcyclohexanol, methylthiophenylmorpholinoketone, morpholinophenylamino ketone, alpha halogenoacetophenone, oxiphenylketone, sulfonylketone, oxiphenylketone, sulfonylketone, benzoyloxime ester, Thioxathrone, camphorquinone, ketocoumarin, and methyl ketone. Alternatively, the radiation-sensing material can be a mixture of compounds, one of which is to provide free radicals when so caused by radiation-activated sensitisers. In one embodiment, the radiation sensing material may be sensed by visible light or ultraviolet light.

In an exemplary embodiment, the reactive material may undergo polymerization initiated by an acid, wherein exposing the radiation-sensitive material to radiation produces an acid. Examples of such reactive materials include, but are not limited to, oxides. Examples of radiation-sensing materials that produce acids include, but are not limited to, iodonium salts such as sulfonium and diphenyliodonium hexafluorophosphate. In an alternative embodiment, the reactive material may comprise a phenolic resin and the radiation-sensing material may be a diazonaphthoquinone.

The RSA material may further comprise a fluorinated material. For example, the RSA material may comprise an unsaturated material having at least one fluoroalkyl group, such as a fluorinated acrylate, a fluorinated ester, or a fluorinated olefin monomer. In an exemplary embodiment, the fluoroalkyl group has from 2 to 20 carbon atoms.

29 shows a liquid-affinity region 1924 and a liquid-rejection region 1926 that are formed after the radiation source 1923 has removed the RSA-treated second hole conductive layer 1918 through the mask 1922. FIG. Fig. 30 is an exemplary cross-sectional view of the enlarged portion M shown in Fig. 29, and Fig. 31 is an exemplary plan view of the enlarged portion M shown in Fig. Note that the liquid-affinity region 1924 and the liquid-rejection region 1926 are shown in FIG. 29 so as to form within the overall thickness of the second hole-conducting layer 1918. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that regions 1924 and / or 1926 may be formed only on a portion of the layer 1918, for example, on the top surface of the layer 1918.

In an exemplary embodiment, a liquid-affinity region 1924 may be formed between the liquid-rejection regions 1926. The liquid-rejection region may have a width between liquid-affinity regions ranging from about 3 [mu] m to greater than 100 [mu] m. The liquid-affinity region 1924 may be formed such that the liquid-affinity region 1924 has a surface area that is slightly larger than the surface area of each electrode 1906, and a liquid-affinity region 1924 formed outside the active region of the electrode 1906 A portion of region 1924 provides a liquid-affinity region margin 1903. For example, as shown in FIGS. 30 and 31, a liquid-affinity region 1924 is formed in the liquid-affinity region 1924, taking into account the drying effect associated with the deposition of the organic luminescent material, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; 1924 &lt; / RTI &gt; Each of the liquid-affinity regions 1924 includes a region 1928 associated with the active region of the electrode 1906 (indicated by hatching in Fig. 30) and a liquid-affinity region margin 1930 disposed outside the active region of the electrode 1906 ) (If present). When the organic luminescent material is deposited on the second hole conductive layer 1918, the organic luminescent material can be substantially confined within the region 1928 and the liquid-affinity region margin 1930 of each liquid-affinity region 1924 have. For example, when the organic luminescent material is treated (e.g., dried), non-uniformity can be produced at the edge of each organic luminescent layer, such that the non-uniformity is confined within the liquid-affinity region margin 1930. In other words, once the organic luminescent material is processed, some of the material within the region 1928 of the liquid-affinity region 1924 may have a non-uniform top surface, thereby reducing visible artifacts that are recognized. The liquid-affinity regions 1924 are formed so that the distance that any non-uniform edge is outside the active region of the electrode 1906 can be based on the edge drying effect. This edge drying effect can also be considered when forming the shape of the liquid-friendly region. For example, in various embodiments (not shown), the organic luminescent material can result in rounded edges rather than the sharp corners shown schematically in the drawings, thereby providing more uniformly dried films. In addition, the liquid-affinity region 1924 can be flexibly configured based on the drying effect associated with the organic luminescent material and the respective materials. In various exemplary embodiments, liquid-affinity region margins 1930 (at least about 20 microns, or about 10 microns or less, or about 5 microns or less, or about 3 microns or less) ) Can be executed. Increasing the size of the liquid-affinity region for the luminescent region may also help to compensate for alignment errors in the patternwise radiation exposure process. For example, in one exemplary embodiment, the patternwise radiation exposure process may have an alignment accuracy of about 2 microns. Therefore, the increased size of the liquid-affinity region can occupy a possible misalignment of about plus or minus 2 mu m for the underlying luminescent region.

As discussed above, the electrodes 1906 can have different shapes, arrangements, and / or shapes. For example, an electrode associated with blue light emission may be larger than an electrode associated with red or green light emission, because the organic light emitting layer associated with blue light emission in an OLED device typically has a shorter lifetime than an organic light emitting layer associated with blue light emission It is because it has. Also, operating the OLED device to achieve a reduced brightness level increases the lifetime of the device. By increasing the emission area of the electrode associated with blue light emission, for the electrode associated with red and green light emission, the electrode associated with the blue light emission can be driven to achieve less bright brightness than the erection of the electrode associated with red and green light emission , Providing a better overall balance of the display as well as creating a better balance between different organic luminescent material lifetimes. The improved balance of this lifetime further improves the overall lifetime of the display, because the lifetime of the organic luminescence associated with the blue luminescence can be extended. In addition, the liquid-affinity regions may correspond to different shapes, arrangements and / or shapes of electrodes 1906. For example, in another exemplary embodiment showing a view similar to FIG. 31, FIG. 32 shows that liquid-affinity regions 1924r, 1924g, and 1924b can be associated with respective electrodes of different shapes, The liquid-affinity region 1924r is associated with an electrode used to achieve red light emission, the liquid-affinity region 1924g is associated with an electrode used to achieve green light emission, and the liquid-affinity region 1924b is used to achieve blue light emission Lt; / RTI &gt;

In an alternative embodiment shown in FIG. 33, which is an exemplary embodiment of the enlarged portion M shown in FIG. 29, a pixel formation layer 1938 can be deposited after the electrode 1906 is deposited on the substrate 1902 have. The pixel-forming layer 1938 may be deposited over a portion of the electrode 1906 and the liquid-affinity region 1924 may be formed such that the liquid-affinity region margin 1930 overlays at least a portion of the pixel- . The pixel-forming layer 1938 may be any physical structure used to describe pixels in the pixel array of the active area 1908 of the display 1900. [ The pixel formation layer 1938 may be made of an electrically resistive material to prevent the formation layer 1938 from blocking the current flow so that undesired visible artifacts are reduced by substantially blocking light emission through the edge of the electrode 1906 . In an exemplary embodiment, the pixel-forming layer 1938 may have a thickness in the range of about 50 nm to about 1500 nm.

34, an organic luminescent material 1932 may be deposited in the active-region display well W formed by the containment structure 1904. As shown in FIG. For example, the organic luminescent material 1932 may be deposited using inkjet printing over the patterned light emitting layer confinement region in the second hole conductive layer 1918. The inkjet nozzle 1914 can guide droplets 1934 of the ink containing the organic luminescent material onto the liquid-affinity region 1924, for example, through the relative scanning motion of the nozzle 1914 and / have. The droplets 1934 of the organic luminescent material can be uniformly distributed within the liquid-affinity region such that the material is fixed at the edge of the liquid-affinity region 1924 (e.g., within the liquid-affinity region margin 1930). One skilled in the art will recognize that although a single nozzle is shown and discussed with reference to Figure 34, a plurality of nozzles are implemented to provide an ink comprising an organic luminescent material. Inks comprising the same or different organic light emitting materials associated with different emission colors can be deposited simultaneously or sequentially from multiple inkjet nozzle heads.

The deposited organic luminescent material 1932 may include materials to facilitate luminescence, such as organic electroluminescent materials associated with red, green, and / or blue luminescence. However, organic electroluminescent devices associated with other emission colors, such as organic luminescence materials associated with yellow and / or white emission, may also be used.

The organo-luminescent material may be mixed with a carrier fluid to form an inkjet ink that is formulated to provide a reliable and uniform loading in the liquid-affinity region 1924. The ink deposited to produce the organic luminescent material 1932 can be transferred from the inkjet nozzle 1914 to the liquid-affinity region 1924 at high speed.

The organic emitting moieties 1932 may be included generally within the surface area formed by the liquid-affinity regions 1924. For example, the organic luminescent material 1932 can be loaded onto the substrate 1902 by depositing droplets 1934 of ink within the liquid-affinity region 1924. Due to the surface energy characteristics of the liquid-affinity region 1924, the droplets of the organic luminescent material 1932 may be uniformly spread within the liquid-affinity region 1924 and may be fixed at the edge within the liquid-affinity region margin 1930 .

It is contemplated that in various exemplary embodiments, a plurality of ink droplets 1934 having a volume of about 10 pL or less can be used to deposit the organic luminescent material 1932. In various exemplary embodiments, an ink droplet volume of about 5 pL or less, about 3 pL or less, or about 2 pL or less can be used. By using a patterned liquid-affinity region 1924 and a liquid-rejection region 1926 according to the disclosure, A relatively larger droplet volume size consistent with conventional inkjet nozzle technology can be used. In addition, there is an additional margin for droplet position accuracy created due to the liquid-affinity region margin 1930.

After the ink 1934 is loaded on the liquid-affinity region 1924, the display 1900 is processed to allow the carrier fluid to evaporate as shown in Fig. 35 to form the organic luminescent layer 1933 . The drying process may include exposing the display to heat, vacuum, or atmospheric conditions for a period of time. After drying, the display may be baked at an elevated temperature to treat the deposited film material, e.g., to alter the quality of the deposited film or a chemical reaction or film form that is beneficial to the overall process. During the drying and / or baking process, edge deformation in the organic light emitting layer 1933 may be included within the liquid-affinity region margin 1930 as discussed and discussed with reference to FIGS. 30 and 31.

The second electrode layer 1936 may be deposited next in the active-region display well W formed by the shield structure 1904 on the dried organic light emitting layer 1933, as shown in FIG. In an alternative embodiment, the second electrode layer 1936 may be further extended beyond the shield structure 1904. [ For example, the second electrode layer 1936 may be in contact with an external conductive path (not shown) disposed on the substrate 1902 to enable the current carried by the second electrode layer 1936 to be donned or drained have. The second electrode layer 1936 may be formed of a transparent or reflective material, such as a metal, a mixed metal, an alloy, a metal oxide, a mixed oxide, or a combination thereof. For example, the second electrode layer 1936 may be indium tin oxide or manganese silver. Although a single layer is shown in FIG. 36, the second electrode layer 1936 includes a plurality of conductive layers, and may have any shape, arrangement, and / or shape. In one exemplary embodiment, the second electrode layer 1936 can be formed using a blanket technique such that electrode 1936 results in a single electrode over the entire active area 1908 of the display 1900 (Fig. 22 and 23). In an alternate embodiment, the second electrode layer 1936 includes a plurality of electrodes, one second electrode being associated (e.g., overlaid) with each electrode 1906. 36, the second electrode layer 1936 with the top of the plane is shown in FIG. 36, but the second electrode layer 1936 can be deposited to reflect the underlying topography resulting in the layer 1936 having a non- have.

The second electrode layer 1936 may be formed using any method of fabrication, such as inkjet printing, nozzle printing, slit coating, spin coating, vacuum thermal evaporation, sputtering (or other physical vapor deposition methods), chemical vapor deposition . By using shadow masking, photolithography (photoresist coating, exposure, development and stripping), wet etching, dry etching, lift-off, etc., any additional patterning that is not otherwise included in the deposition technique can be accomplished.

When the second electrode layer 1936 is a continuous layer over the active-area display well W, the layer 1936 can blanket the topography formed by the previously disposed layer. For example, a second electrode layer 1936 may be formed in the liquid-repellent region 1926 by forming a second hole-conducting layer 1918 and an organic light-emitting layer 1918 formed on the liquid-affinity region 1924 of the second hole- Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; 1933 &lt; / RTI &gt;

An additional OLED layer may be deposited over the organic light emitting layer 1933 prior to providing the second electrode layer 1936. For example, the additional OLED layer may be an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, a hole blocking layer, Layer and / or a protection layer. These additional OLED layers may be deposited by a variety of techniques known to those skilled in the art by inkjet printing, vacuum thermal evaporation, or other methods.

In an alternative exemplary embodiment, the display 1900 includes a first hole conductive layer 1912 and a second hole conductive layer 1918, shown for the example of FIG. 28, A layer 1913, and the like. A liquid-affinity region 1924 is formed in one hole-conducting layer 1913 such that a liquid-affinity region margin 1930 is formed within a portion of one hole-conducting layer 1913 outside the active region of the electrode 1906 . The hole conductive layer 1913 may include one or more hole conductive materials. For example, the hole conductive layer 1913 may include a hole injecting material and / or a hole transporting layer.

37, the hole conductive layer 1913 and the second electrode layer 1936 may be formed on the hole conductive layer 1913 and / or the second electrode layer 1936 in accordance with the underlying topography. The top can be non-planar. For example, the deposited OLED layer can result in surface topography that is not on one plane parallel to the substrate and the entire active-area display well W. [ For example, one or both of the layers 1913 and 1936 may be non-planar and discontinuous in one plane of the display due to relative recesses or protrusions associated with any surface features including electrodes disposed on the substrate 1902 (Where the plane of the display is intended as a plane parallel to the substrate 1902). As shown, the layers 1913 and 1936 are sufficiently compliant to underlying surface feature topography so that the top of the OLED layer may have a resulting topography that follows the topography of the underlying surface features. In other words, the respective deposited OLED layers conform to all underlying layers and / or surface features disposed on the substrate 1902 such that the underlying layers are deposited on the non-planar top surface of the OLED layer &Lt; / RTI &gt; As such, in a plane across the active-area display well parallel to the plane of the display, discontinuities in the layer (1913 or 1936 or all) can be generated in the active-area display wells, Along with the surface features, can occur as the layer (s) rise and / or fall relative to the plane. Although the layers 1913 and / or 1936 are not fully compliant with the underlying surface topography (e.g., there may be partial non-uniformities in thickness around the edge region and the like, as described above) A sufficiently compliant coating without depletion or depletion can promote a more uniform, uniform and repeatable coating. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the same considerations described above apply to the hole conductive layer including both the hole injection layer and the hole transport layer so that these layers fully conform to the underlying surface feature topography, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; topography &lt; / RTI &gt; of the underlying surface features.

In various embodiments, the containment structure 1904 may be omitted and, instead, the ink formulation and printing process may be designed such that a liquid-impermeable region is formed in the region outside the display active region and deposited in the inactive region of the display Allow any fluid to be rejected. 38 and 39, a first hole conductive layer 1912 and a second hole conductive layer 1918 are disposed between the electrode 1906 and the substrate 1910 in the inactive region 1910 of the display 1900, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; 1902 &lt; / RTI &gt; In an exemplary embodiment, the layers 1912 and 1918 may be blanket coated over the entire substrate. The second hole conductive layer 1918 may be processed to modify the surface energy or affinity of the portion of the second hole conductive layer 1918 for forming the light emitting layer confinement region. In addition, the liquid-rejection portion 1925 in the inactive region 1910 of the display may form a concealed region CA, wherein the liquid-rejection portion 1925 may surround the active region 1908. As described above, the radiation source 1926 can provide radiation through the mask 1922 that affects the surface of the second hole conductive layer 1918 treated with the RSA material. Radiation from the source 1926 may modify at least one property of the RSA material to form a liquid-affinity region 1924. The liquid-rejection portion 1925 may have a surface energy that results in a liquid-rejection region at these portions. In this embodiment, there is no surrounding structure around the entire active area of the display (e.g., there is no active-area display well), so that it includes the active area of the display, There is no structure. This can provide a robust process simplification and at the same time potentially requires further processing steps to remove at least a portion of the material from the inactive display area. The organic luminescent material 1932 may be deposited in a liquid-affinity region 1924. In addition, the organic luminescent material 1932 can be substantially confined within the active region 1908 of the display 1900, due to the liquid-rejection portion 1925.

40 is a cross-sectional view of the enlarged portion shown in FIG. 39 and shows a liquid-affinity region 1924 including a portion 1928 associated with the active region of the electrode 1906 and a liquid-affinity margin region 1930 . The liquid-rejection portion 1925 of the second hole conductive layer can be spaced from the liquid-affinity margin region 1930 associated with each electrode 1906 in the active region 1908 adjacent to the inactive region 1910. The liquid-rejection portion 1925 may prevent the organic luminescent material from migrating to the bar active portion 1910 of the display 1900.

According to an exemplary embodiment, the OLED device of Figures 22-40 may have a top emissive configuration or a bottom emissive configuration. For example, in the top emission configuration, the plurality of electrodes 1906 shown in FIGS. 22-40 may be reflective electrodes and the second electrode layer 1936 shown in FIGS. 36 and 37 may be transparent electrodes . Alternatively, in the bottom emission configuration, the plurality of electrodes 1906 may be transparent and the second electrode layer 1936 may be reflective

In another exemplary embodiment, the OLED display of Figures 22-40 may be a high-performance matrix OLED (AMOLED). The AMOLED display improves display performance compared to passive-matrix OLED (PMOLED) displays, but relies on active drive circuits on the substrate, such as thin film transistors (TFT), and such circuits are not transparent. The PMOLED display has some elements that are not transparent, such as a conductive bus line, but the AMOLED display has substantially more opaque elements. Thus, in the case of a bottom-emitting AMOLED display, the fill factor can be reduced compared to PMOLED, since light can only emanate through opaque circuit elements through the bottom of the substrate. For this reason, it may be desirable to utilize this configuration, since the LED element can be constructed on top of this opaque active circuit element using the top emission form for the AMOLED display, and without the concern of the opacity of the underlying element , Light can be emitted through the top of the OLED element. Generally, by using the top light emitting structure, the light emission of each pixel of the display 1900 (e.g., a light emitting element) is not blocked by the additional opaque elements (e.g., TFTs, driver circuit components, etc.) deposited on the substrate 1902 The fill factor can be increased. However, the disclosure is not limited to the top luminescent active-matrix OLED form. The techniques and arrangements discussed herein can be used in other types of displays, such as bottom emission and / or manual display, as well as understanding how a person skilled in the art can make use of the appropriate modifications.

The various aspects described above with reference to Figures 22-40 can be used for various pixel and sub-pixel layouts in accordance with the present disclosure. An exemplary layout as contemplated by this disclosure is shown in Fig.

In an exemplary embodiment, the light emitting layer confinement region may be formed to include a plurality of sub-pixel regions, so that the inactive portion of the pixel is reduced. For example, as shown in FIG. 41, a light emitting layer confinement region may be formed on a plurality of individually addressed sub-pixel electrodes, where each sub-pixel electrode may be associated with a different pixel . By increasing the area of the luminescent layer confinement structure, the fill factor can be maximized because the ratio of the active area to the entire pixel area increases. Achieving this increase in the fill factor not only enables high resolution in smaller sized displays, but also increases the lifetime of the display.

41 shows a partial plan view of a display 2000 that includes a plurality of pixels formed by dashed border portions 2050, 2051, and 2052 when selectively diverting light that can produce an image to be displayed to a user. In a full color display, pixels 2050, 2051, and 2052 may include a plurality of sub-pixels of different colors. For example, pixel 2050 may include red sub-pixel R, green sub-pixel G, and blue sub-pixel B. Light emitting layer confinement regions 2034,2036 and 2038 can be formed in the second hole conductive layer 2026 wherein the light emitting layer confinement region 2034 can be associated with an organic light emitting material having a divergence in the red wavelength range, The luminescent layer confinement region 2036 can be associated with an organic luminescent material with a divergence in the green wavelength range and the luminescent layer confinement region 2036 can be associated with an organic luminescent material with a divergence in the blue wavelength range. Each light emitting layer confinement region 2034, 2036 and 2038 may be associated with a plurality of electrodes 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2024. By configuring the light emitting layer confinement regions 2034, 2036, 2038 associated with the plurality of electrodes, the overall fill factor of the display 2000 can be improved, for example, to a high resolution display.

It is contemplated that the exemplary layout of FIG. 41 is intended to be in various ways to implement the present disclosure, rather than as an intention. In many cases, the specific selection of a particular layout will depend on factors such as the layout underlying the electrical network, the desired pixel shape, such as rectangles, squares, circles, hexagons, triangles, and the like, Visual artifacts that can be observed for different types of display content, such as text, graphics, or moving images). Those skilled in the art will recognize that various other layouts are within the scope of the present disclosure and that modifications can be made based on the principles described herein. It will also be appreciated by those skilled in the art that for the sake of brevity, the light emitting layer confinement region is described in the description of the exemplary layout of FIG. 41, It will be appreciated that any feature, including other layouts described, may be used in combination with any pixel layout herein.

Using various aspects in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, some exemplary dimensions and parameters may be useful to achieve a high resolution OLED display with an increased fill factor. Table 9-11 includes a prophetic and non-limiting example according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure associated with an OLED display having a resolution of 326 ppi, wherein Table 9 describes a sub-pixel associated with red emission, Describes sub-pixels associated with green light emission, and Table 11 describes sub-pixels associated with blue light emission. Tables 12-14 include prophetic and non-limiting examples according to an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure associated with displays having a resolution of 440 ppi, as well as conventional dimensions and parameters, Describing the associated sub-pixels, Table 13 describes sub-pixels associated with green light emission, and Table 14 describes sub-pixels associated with blue light emission.

Sub-pixels associated with red emission in a display with a resolution of 326 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The area (탆 ² ) of the light- The sub-pixel associated with the luminescent layer confinement region shown in Fig. 31.5 31.5 989.5 The sub-pixel associated with the light emitting layer forming structure shown in Fig. 42 having the forming layer shown in Fig. 28.5 28.5 809.8

Sub-pixels associated with green emission in a display with a resolution of 326 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The area (탆 ² ) of the light- The sub-pixel associated with the luminescent layer confinement region shown in Fig. 31.5 31.5 989.5 The sub-pixel associated with the light emitting layer forming structure shown in Fig. 42 having the forming layer shown in Fig. 28.5 28.5 809.8

Sub-pixels associated with blue emission in a display with a resolution of 326 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The area (탆 ² ) of the light- The sub-pixel associated with the luminescent layer confinement region shown in Fig. 30.0 65.9 1979.1 The sub-pixel associated with the light emitting layer forming structure shown in Fig. 42 having the forming layer shown in Fig. 27.0 59.9 1619.6

Sub-pixels associated with red emission in a display with a resolution of 440 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The area (탆 ² ) of the light- The sub-pixel associated with the luminescent layer confinement region shown in Fig. 21.4 21.4 456.4 The sub-pixel associated with the light emitting layer forming structure shown in Fig. 42 having the forming layer shown in Fig. 18.4 18.4 337.2

Sub-pixels associated with red emission in a display with a resolution of 440 ppi The length of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The width of the sub-pixel ([mu] m) The area (탆 ² ) of the light- The sub-pixel associated with the luminescent layer confinement region shown in Fig. 21.4 21.4 456.4 The sub-pixel associated with the light emitting layer forming structure shown in Fig. 42 having the forming layer shown in Fig. 18.4 18.4 337.2

The embodiments disclosed herein can be used to obtain high resolution in any OLED display. Therefore, it can be applied to various electronic display devices. Some non-limiting examples of such electronic display devices include, but are not limited to, television displays, video cameras, digital cameras, head mounted displays, car navigation systems, audio systems including displays, laptop personal computers, digital gaming equipment, A tablet, a mobile computer, a mobile phone, a mobile game device or an electronic book), and an image reproducing apparatus provided with a recording medium. An exemplary embodiment of two types of electronic display devices is shown in Figs. 20 and 21. Fig. Figure 20 illustrates a monitor of a television monitor and / or a desktop personal computer, including any of the OLED displays in accordance with the present invention. The monitor 1500 may include a frame 1502, a support 1504, and a display portion 1506. The OLED display embodiment disclosed herein may be used as the display portion 1506. [ The monitor 1500 may be any size display, e.g., a display of 55 " or greater.

Figure 21 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a mobile device 1600 (e.g., a cellular telephone, tablet, personal data assistant, etc.) that includes any of the OLED displays in accordance with the present invention. The mobile device 1600 may include a body 1062, a display portion 1604, and an action switch 1606. The OLED display embodiment disclosed herein may be used as the display portion 1604.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that Figures 1-43 are schematic and should only be considered expressive. For example, various restraint structures 1904 and other structures may be shown having a sharp and sharp edge parallel to the wall vertically disposed on the substrate, which includes rounded edges and / or angled walls And may have any shape. In addition, any layer, well, and / or confinement region may have uneven edges, such as rounded, angled, and the like.

Various exemplary embodiments previously described in accordance with the present invention can enable inkjet printing of OLED displays with increased fill factor by increasing the size of the limiting wells into which relatively high pixel densities and OLED material droplets are loaded, Enabling the use of obtainable droplet size and obtainable inkjet system droplet position accuracy. Because of the larger confinement area, it is possible to achieve substantially larger inkjet droplet volume and obtainable droplet position accuracy &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; , A high-resolution OLED display can be manufactured. When using a confinement structure, without implementing a confinement well or confinement region that spans a plurality of sub-pixels in accordance with the present invention, the droplet size and system droplet position error may cause problems in any high resolution display manufactured using conventional inkjet heads The droplet will have an excessively large volume and will overfill each sub-pixel well and will result in an erroneous placement of the droplet, either entirely or partially, outside the target confinement well, All of which will result in undesirable errors in film deposition and visible defects corresponding to the final display appearance. In many cases the techniques described herein by virtue of their ability to achieve high pixel densities with conventional drop volume and drop position accuracy, are suitable for small size displays such as those found in smartphones and / or tablets, large size displays, , Can be used in the manufacture of relatively high resolution displays for ultra-high resolution televisions.

Further, according to an exemplary embodiment, a substantially uniform thickness of OLED material layer (s) that is sufficiently compliant with the underlying topography can promote the overall OLED display performance and quality, and in particular, the desired performance in high resolution OLED displays And quality can be obtained.

One or more of the embodiments described above may result in a reduced fill factor. In conventional pixel arrays, the fill factor for a display with a resolution of 300-400 ppi has a fill factor of less than 40%, often less than 30%. Alternatively, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention may achieve a fill factor of greater than 40%, in some instances 60%, for a display having a resolution of 300-440 ppi. The exemplary embodiment may be used for any pixel size and arrangement, including pixel arrays in a high resolution display.

The exemplary embodiment can be used in any size display, more specifically, in a small display with high resolution. For example, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention can be used in a display having a diagonal size of 3-70 inches and a resolution of more than 100 ppi, e.g., greater than 300 ppi.

While the various exemplary embodiments described contemplate the use of inkjet printing techniques, it is contemplated that various pixel and sub-pixel layouts described herein may be used with other fabrication techniques, such as thermal evaporation deposition, organic vapor deposition, organic vapor jet printing, The manner in which the layout for the OLED display is made can also be made. In an exemplary embodiment, alternating organic layer patterning may be performed. For example, the patterning method may include shadow masking (with thermal evaporation) and organic vapor jet printing. Specifically, the pixel layout described herein in which a plurality of sub-pixels of the same color are grouped together and the deposited OLED film layer spans a substantial topography in the grouped sub-pixel regions is described in an inkjet printing application , This layout may also have a beneficial alternative application to a vacuum thermal evaporation deposition technique for OLED film layer deposition in which the patterning step is performed using shadow masking. As described herein, such a layout can improve the overall mechanical stability and general feasibility of such shadow masks by providing larger shadow mask holes and increased distance between such holes. Although the vacuum thermal evaporation deposition technique using a shadow mask may not be as costly as an ink jet technique, the use of a pixel layout according to the invention and the use of an OLED film layer coating over a substantial topography in grouped sub- The use also represents a substantially important application of the present invention.

In accordance with the present disclosure, the various exemplary embodiments described above, in accordance with the present disclosure, utilize a light-emitting layer confinement region to reduce the inactive region of a pixel, thereby providing a device having a relatively high pixel density and an increased fill factor Inkjet printing of an OLED display can confine the inkjet drop of the organic luminescent material by enabling the use of conventional ink droplet sizes and conventional inkjet system drop position accuracy. Because of the luminescent layer confinement area to be formed, the high-resolution OLED displays are capable of producing a sufficiently large inkjet &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; Can be manufactured using droplet volume and conventional drop position accuracy. The requirements for droplet size and system drop position error will be significantly increased in any high resolution display manufactured using conventional ink jet heads. Using conventional droplet volume and conventional drop position accuracy, the ability to achieve high pixel densities allows the techniques described herein to be used in a wide range of applications, from, for example, small-sized displays found in smartphones and / To be used in the manufacture of relatively high resolution displays for many applications up to a large size display such as &lt; RTI ID = 0.0 &gt; One or more embodiments described above can achieve a reduced fill factor when using conventional pixel arrays. In conventional pixel arrays, the fill factor for a display with a resolution of 300-400 ppi has a fill factor of less than 40%, often less than 30%, due to the confinement structure contribution to the inactive pixel area. Alternatively, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention may achieve a fill factor of greater than 40%, in some instances 60%, for a display having a resolution of 300-440 ppi. The exemplary embodiment may be used for any pixel size and arrangement, including pixel arrays in a high resolution display.

The exemplary embodiment can be used in any size display, more specifically, in a small display with high resolution. For example, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention can be used in a display having a diagonal size of 3-70 inches and a resolution of more than 100 ppi, e.g., greater than 300 ppi.

While only a few exemplary embodiments have been described in detail, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that many modifications are possible in the exemplary embodiments within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the following claims.

Additional aspects are disclosed in the following sections.

The first aspect relates to a method of making an organic light emitting display. The first aspect includes providing a plurality of electrodes on a substrate. The first hole conductive layer may be deposited over a plurality of electrodes on the substrate via inkjet printing. The liquid affinity of the selected surface portion of the first hole conductive layer may be varied to form the light emitting layer confinement region. Each of the light emitting layer confinement regions has a portion corresponding to each of the plurality of first electrodes provided on the substrate. The organic light emitting layer may be deposited in the respective light emitting layer confinement region through inkjet printing.

In a second aspect according to the first aspect, the method may further comprise depositing a second hole conductive layer between the plurality of electrodes and the first hole conductive layer via inkjet printing.

In a third aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method may further comprise providing a confinement structure on the substrate surrounding the plurality of electrodes.

In a fourth aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method may further comprise a plurality of electrodes disposed in an active area of the display.

In a fifth aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method further comprises a second electrode deposited on each organic light emitting layer, wherein the plurality of electrodes may be a plurality of first electrodes.

In a sixth aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method may further comprise a pixel formation layer deposited over portions of each of the plurality of electrodes.

In a seventh aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method may further comprise a pixel formation layer having a thickness in the range of about 50 nm to about 1500 nm.

In an eighth aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method may further comprise the step of varying the liquid affinity of the surface by emitting a selected surface portion of the first hole conductive layer through the opening of the mask .

In a ninth aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method may further comprise radiation comprising at least one of infrared light, visible light and ultraviolet light.

In a tenth aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method is a blanket deposited over a plurality of electrodes to form a substantially continuous layer of material, the surface opposite the substrate being a blanket having a nonplanar topography And may further include a one-hole conductive layer.

In an eleventh aspect according to any one of the above aspects, the method is a blanket deposited on a second hole conductive layer to form a substantially continuous layer of material, wherein the first hole is on the opposite side of the second hole conductive layer The conductive layer may further comprise a first hole conductive layer having a non-planar topography.

The twelfth aspect relates to an organic light emitting display. The twelfth aspect may include a plurality of electrodes disposed on a substrate. The plurality of electrodes may be arranged in an array form. The confinement structure may be disposed on the substrate. The confinement structure may surround a plurality of electrodes. The first hole conductive layer may be disposed over a plurality of electrodes in the confinement structure. The liquid affinity of the surface portion of the first conductive layer can be changed to form the luminescent layer confinement region in the one-hole conductive layer. The organic light emitting layer may be disposed within each light emitting layer confinement region.

In a thirteenth aspect according to the twelfth aspect, the display may further include a second hole conductive layer disposed between the plurality of electrodes and the first hole conductive layer.

In a fourteenth aspect according to the twelfth or thirteenth aspect, the display may further include a respective light emitting layer confinement region which may be surrounded by the liquid-repelling region.

In a fifteenth aspect according to any one of the twelfth to fourteenth aspects, the display may further include respective organic light-emitting confinement regions that are not individually surrounded by the constricting structure.

In a sixteenth aspect according to any one of the twelfth to fifteenth aspects, the display may further include a plurality of electrodes disposed in the active area of the display.

The seventeenth aspect relates to an organic light emitting display manufactured by a process. The seventeenth aspect may include providing a substrate comprising a plurality of electrodes disposed on a substrate. At least one hole conductive layer may be deposited over the plurality of electrodes on the substrate via inkjet printing. The liquid affinity of the selected portion of the at least one hole conductive layer may be changed to form the luminescent layer confinement region on the surface of the at least one hole conductive layer. The organic light emitting layer may be deposited in the respective light emitting layer confinement structure formed in the at least one hole conductive layer through inkjet printing.

In a eighteenth aspect according to the seventeenth aspect, the display produced by the process includes providing a shielding structure on a substrate, wherein the shielding structure forms a well surrounding the plurality of electrodes.

In a nineteenth aspect according to the seventeenth or the eighteenth aspect, the display manufactured by the process includes a first hole conductive layer deposited on the plurality of electrodes on the substrate through inkjet printing, 1 &lt; / RTI &gt; hole conductive layer.

In a twentieth aspect according to the seventeenth to nineteenth aspects, the display manufactured by the process includes a first hole conductive layer deposited on the plurality of electrodes on the substrate through inkjet printing and a second hole conductive layer on the first hole conductive layer, And a light emitting layer confinement region may be formed on the surface of the second hole conductive layer.

In a twenty-first aspect according to the seventeenth or twentieth aspect, the display manufactured by the process may include a plurality of electrodes disposed in the active area of the display.

It is to be understood that the various embodiments described herein should be treated as illustrative. Elements and materials, and arrangements of these elements and materials may be substituted for those shown and described herein, and portions may be reversed and will become apparent to those skilled in the art after taking the advantages described herein. Changes to the elements described herein may be made within the spirit and scope of the claims, including the description and equivalents.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various modifications of the structure and method of the exemplary embodiments are possible within the scope of the present invention.

It will also be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that, although combinations are not explicitly described herein, various features disclosed for one exemplary embodiment of the disclosure may be used in combination with other illustrative embodiments that have been modified accordingly .

It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the devices, methods, and systems of the present invention within the scope of the detailed description and claims. Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. The detailed description and examples are merely illustrative.

Claims (17)

Board;
A plurality of electrodes disposed on the substrate;
A first hole conductive layer overlying a plurality of electrodes disposed on the substrate;
Wherein the first hole conductive layer comprises a light emitting layer confinement region that covers one or more electrodes of the plurality of electrodes disposed on the substrate, each of the confronting regions comprises a respective one of the at least one electrode And the boundary regions each surround the light emitting layer confinement region, the light emitting layer confinement region has a first liquid affinity, and the boundary region has a second liquid affinity different from the first liquid affinity, Has liquid affinity; And
Wherein the organic light emitting layer is disposed at a position above the light emitting layer confinement region, and the organic light emitting layer is confined within the light emitting layer confinement region. The organic light emitting display according to claim 1, wherein a second liquid affinity of the boundary region suppresses migration of the organic luminescent material after deposition of organic luminescent materials in the luminescent layer confinement region. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, further comprising a second hole conductive layer disposed between the plurality of electrodes and the first hole conductive layer. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, wherein the second liquid affinity causes the boundary region to reject liquid. The organic light emitting display according to claim 1, wherein each of the light emitting layer confinement regions is not individually surrounded by a confinement structure. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, wherein a plurality of electrodes are disposed within the active area of the display. The OLED display of claim 1, further comprising a second electrode disposed on the organic light emitting layer in each of the light emitting layer confinement regions, wherein the plurality of electrodes are a plurality of first electrodes. The organic light emitting display according to claim 7, wherein the plurality of first electrodes is a reflective electrode and the second electrode is a transparent electrode. The organic light emitting display according to claim 7, wherein the plurality of first electrodes is a transparent electrode and the second electrode is a reflective electrode. 8. The organic light emitting display of claim 7, wherein the second electrode is a common electrode disposed over all of the light emitting layer confinement regions. 2. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, further comprising a pixel definition layer disposed over a portion of each of the plurality of electrodes. 12. The organic light emitting display according to claim 11, wherein the pixel forming layer has a thickness ranging from 50 nm to 1500 nm. The method of claim 1, wherein the first hole conductive layer is a continuous layer material, the first hole conductive layer surface facing away from the substrate has a non-planar shape along a plurality of electrode shapes, and the substrate and the first hole conductive layer An organic light-emitting display characterized by overlie. 14. The organic light emitting display of claim 13, further comprising a second hole conductive layer disposed between the first hole conductive layer and the substrate. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, wherein the display is an active matrix display comprising circuitry disposed on a substrate. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, further comprising a shielding structure disposed on the substrate to surround the plurality of electrodes. The organic light emitting display of claim 1, wherein the plurality of electrodes are arranged in an array.

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