In this work, we present a systematic study of the emission from bilayer organic microcavity light emitting diodes with two metal mirrors. The devices consisting of two organic layers, N,N',di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N'-diphenylbenzidine as the hole transport layer and tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum as the emitting layer, and two metal mirrors were fabricated and characterized by transmittance, reflectance, photoluminescence, and electroluminescence measurements. The effects of layer thickness, interface position, and the choice of anode (bottom mirror) were investigated. The transmittance and reflectance spectra were modeled using a transfer matrix model, and the optical functions for all the materials used were determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The dependence of the photoluminescence and electroluminescence spectra on the device thickness and interface position is discussed. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.