Intramolecular Through-Space Charge Transfer Based TADF-Active Multifunctional Emitters for High Efficiency Solution-Processed OLED

Bing Li, Zhan Yang, Wenqi Gong, Xinhui Chen, Duncan W. Bruce, Shengyue Wang, Huili Ma, Yu Liu, Weiguo Zhu*, Zhenguo Chi, Yafei Wang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) has been explored actively in luminescent organic materials. Yet, realizing such TADF-active, multifunctional emitters with high emission efficiency still remains hugely challenging. In this context, a series of twist-conjugated organic molecules bearing diphenylsulfone and 9,9-dimethylacridine moieties are designed and prepared, and are found to show, in one molecule, TADF, room-temperature phosphorescence, triboluminescence, and aggregation-induced emission enhancement. In addition, remarkably high photoluminescence quantum efficiency, up to ≈100%, is achieved for these novel molecules. Single-crystal analysis and theoretical calculations reveal that the through-space charge transfer (TSCT) effect in these molecules is responsible for both the multifunctional emission and high emission efficiency. A maximum external quantum efficiency of 20.1% is achieved, which is among the highest recorded in a solution-processable device containing TSCT-based TADF materials. These results illustrate a new approach to achieving highly efficient TADF-active, multifunctional emitters.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2100180
Number of pages10
JournalAdvanced Optical Materials
Volume9
Issue number15
Early online date10 May 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
B.L. and Z.Y. contributed equally to this work. Financial support was from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51773021, 51911530197, U1663229, and 51473140), Six talent peaks project in Jiangsu Province (XCL‐102),Natural Science Fund for Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (No. 19KJA430002), and Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (SJCX20_0977).

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Keywords

  • high efficiency
  • multifunctional emitters
  • structure–property relationship
  • thermally activated delayed fluorescence
  • through-space charge transfer

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