The effect of magnetic field on the intensity of electroluminescence from devices made of a poly-$p$-phenylenevinylene (PPV) copolymer was investigated. The emission intensity was enhanced by the application of magnetic field, and the magnitude of the increase depended on operational voltages. When the device was operated under application of low voltages, the intensity increased with magnetic field and reached an 8.5% increase at about $100\mathrm{mT}$. With the increase of the operational voltage, the effect of magnetic field was lessened. In addition, when measured at high voltages with increasing magnetic field, the emission intensity started to decrease after passing a maximum, then leveled off. This saturation value was slightly higher than that observed in the absence of magnetic field. These findings suggest that two processes sensitive to magnetic field are included in the emission processes. They are assigned to the charge recombination (CR) of anion and cation radicals and triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) processes. From the analysis of the effects of magnetic field on the emission intensity based on a kinetic model, we quantitatively determined the fractions of singlet and triplet excitons generated through the CR process to be 0.17 and 0.83, respectively. With the increase of the concentration of triplet excitons in the organic layer, production of singlet excitons through the TTA process was enhanced, and the total yield of the singlet excitons exceeded 0.5 under normal device operational conditions. We conclude that this high yield is responsible for the high emission efficiency observed in the light-emitting devices based on PPVs.

• Received 9 April 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.195209