Abstract
We have demonstrated a ytterbium tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) based organic light emitting device giving sharp electroluminescence at ∼980 nm, and demonstrated that it is not a requirement to match the energy of excitons formed on the organic ligands to those of the intra atomic transition within the ytterbium ion to obtain this emission. This may also be true for other rare-earth containing organic molecules thus allowing molecules to be designed for their charge transport properties rather than to match energy levels with the ions. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.