The broad luminescence spectrum of a thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a critical issue to overcome for its application in high-color-purity displays. Herein, a novel device structure that utilizes the first-order microcavity optical mode with a high radiance intensity is demonstrated to solve this problem by considering the charge transport properties through the analysis of hole-only and electron-only devices. In addition, by tuning the optical interference near the semitransparent top cathode layers consisting of thin silver and organic capping layers, light extraction is increased by nearly 2 times compared to the device without a capping layer. Consequently, the optimized blue TADF top-emission OLED exhibits much lower full width at half-maximum, higher maximum current efficiency, and external quantum efficiency compared to the device before optimization. This approach is expected to provide a simple but effective way to further enhance the spectral purity of the conventional TADF-based OLEDs.

We investigate the localized surface plasmon (LSP) effect by Al nanorings on the AlGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) structure emitting at 365 nm. For this experiment, first, the size of Al nanorings is optimized to maximize the energy transfer (or coupling) between the LSP and MQW using the silica nanospheres. Then, the Al nanorings with an outer diameter of 385 nm, which exhibit a strong absorption peak in the near-ultraviolet region, are applied to the top surface of the AlGaN/GaN MQW. The photoluminescence (PL) intensity of the MQW structure with Al nanorings increased by 227% at 365 nm compared to that without Al nanorings. This improvement is mainly attributed to an enhanced radiative recombination rate in the MQWs through the energy-matched LSPs by the temperature-dependent PL and time-resolved PL analyses. The radiative lifetime was about two times shorter than that of the structure without Al nanorings at room temperature. In addition, the measured PL efficiency at room temperature of the structure with Al nanorings was 33%, while that of the structure without Al nanorings was 19%, implying that LSP-QW coupling together with the nanoring array pattern itself played important roles in the enhancement.