Organic electroluminescent diodes as a light source for polymeric waveguides - toward organic integrated optical devices

We fabricated organic electroluminescent diodes (OELD) on a polymeric optic al waveguide for use as an optical interconnect in data communication syste ms. We fabricated the OELDs on an ITO sputtered polymeric waveguide with a 45 degrees mirror by vacuum deposition. These OELDs, with an emission peak center at 520 nm, consist of a NN ' -diphenyl-NN '-(3-methylphenyl)1,1 ' -b iphenyl-4,4 ' -diamine (TPD) as a hole transporting layer and 8-hydroxyquin olie aluminum (Alq(3)) as an emissive layer. We estimated the propagation l osses of the waveguide to be 1.35 dB/cm at 520 nm. The optical pulses of fa ster than 5 Mb/s have been generated from the OELD. We discuss the characte ristics of the OLED as regards its use as a light source for polymeric wave guides. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.