We develop a general theory of electron-hole recombination in organic light-emitting diodes that leads to formation of emissive singlet excitons and nonemissive triplet excitons. We briefly review other existing theories and show how our approach is substantively different from these theories. Using an exact time-dependent approach to the interchain/intermolecular charge transfer within a long–range interacting model we find that (i) the relative yield of the singlet exciton in polymers is considerably larger than the 25% predicted from statistical considerations, (ii) the singlet exciton yield increases with chain length in oligomers, and (iii) in small molecules containing nitrogen heteroatoms, the relative yield of the singlet exciton is considerably smaller and may be even close to 25%. The above results are independent of whether or not the bond-charge repulsion, $X_{\perp },$ is included in the interchain part of the Hamiltonian for the two-chain system. The larger (smaller) yield of the singlet (triplet) exciton in carbon-based long-chain polymers is a consequence of both its ionic (covalent) nature and smaller (larger) binding energy. In nitrogen containing monomers, wave functions are closer to the noninteracting limit, and this decreases (increases) the relative yield of the singlet (triplet) exciton. Our results are in qualitative agreement with electroluminescence experiments involving both molecular and polymeric light emitters. The time-dependent approach developed here for describing intermolecular charge-transfer processes is completely general and may be applied to many other such processes.

• Received 26 July 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.67.045109