We report electroabsorption studies of poly(2-methoxy-5-ethyl(2′-hexyloxy) para-phenylene vinylene) light-emitting diodes. An electric field develops during operation which opposes the field of the applied bias. The counter field builds up within 5 s of turning on the device, increases in magnitude with the operating voltage, and decays exponentially with a time constant between 15 and 32 s. We attribute the counter field to bulk carrier traps and discuss its relevance to the increase of the turn-on voltage as organic light-emitting diodes degrade.

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