Patent ID: 7897269

Claim:
An organic EL element provided with a substrate, a first electrode layer and second electrode layer situated in a mutually opposing manner on one side of the substrate, and a luminescent layer situated between the electrode layers, wherein one of said first electrode layer and said second electrode layer is a hole injection electrode layer and the other is an electron injection electrode layer, and there is formed between said luminescent layer and said electron injection electrode layer an organic thin-film layer composed of only an organic polymer compound which satisfies the following inequality (1) and inequality (2), and wherein the organic thin-film layer has a film thickness of 0.05-10 nm, | EA LL |−|EA OTL |≧0.3 eV (1) | IP OTL |−|IP LL |≧0.3 eV (2) where EA LL is the electron affinity of said luminescent layer, EA OTL is the electron affinity of said organic thin-film layer, IP OTL is the ionization potential of said organic thin-film layer, and IP LL is the ionization potential of said luminescent layer.