Electroluminescence as a probe for elucidating electrical conductivity in a deoxyribonucleic acid-cetyltrimethylammonium lipid complex layer

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) was fabricated using a DNA-cetyltrimethylammonium (CTMA) lipid complex as an active charge transport layer. The current density-voltage (J-V) characteristics of the DNA-CTMA single and double layer devices with unipolar hole and electron transport layers were also measured. The origin of the electrical conduction must be due to the DNA strands, because the nonconjugated lipid has no ability to contribute to the carrier transport. The results show that a DNA-CTMA layer prefentially transports holes rather than electrons.