Some organic electronic devices incorporate air-sensitive materials which must be processed in a pressurised glove-box. For small-molecule OLEDs (SMOLEDs), additional n- and p-type dopants and metal contacts are deposited by vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE), which currently requires the cumbersome transfer of the device into a separate vacuum system.
We have now developed a vacuum evaporation unit that can be integrated into the base of a glove-box, thus facilitating in-situ deposition.
The turbo-pumped vessel has provision for several of our
valved organic evaporators,
thermal or
e-beam
metal-contact evaporators, plus a film-thickness monitor.
As shown below, the evaporator can be readily retrofitted by the simple provision of a circular hole in the base of the glove-box, which can be restored to its original condition, if required, by means of a supplementary sealing-flange supplied with the vacuum system.
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