Deposition of Silicon-Based Stacked Layers for Flexible Encapsulation of Organic Light Emitting Diodes

In this study, inorganic silicon oxide (SiO(x))/organic silicon (SiC(x)H(y)) stacked layers were deposited by a radio frequency inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition system as a gas diffusion barrier for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The effects of thicknesses of SiO(x) and SiC(x)H(y) layers on the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and residual stress were investigated to evaluate the encapsulation capability. The experimental results showed that the lowest WVTR and residual stress were obtained when the thicknesses of SiO(x) and SiC(x)H(y) were 300 and 30 nm, respectively. Finally, different numbers of stacked pairs of SiO(x)/SiC(x)H(y) were applied to OLED encapsulation. The OLED encapsulated with the six-pair SiO(x)/SiC(x)H(y) exhibited a low turn-on voltage and low series resistance, and device lifetime increased from 7 h to more than 2000 h.