Bipolar host with multielectron transport benzimidazole units for low operating voltage and high power efficiency solution-processed phosphorescent OLEDs

Advances in Solution-Processed OLEDs and their Prospects for Use in Displays

This review outlines problems and progress in development of solution-processed organic light-emitting diodes (SOLEDs) in industry and academia. Solution processing has several advantages such as low consumption of materials, low-cost processing, and large-area manufacturing. However, use of a solution process entails complications, such as the need for solvent resistivity and solution-processable materials, and yields SOLEDs that have limited luminous efficiency, severe roll-off characteristics, and short lifetime compared to OLEDs fabricated using thermal evaporation. These demerits impede production of practical SOLED displays. This review outlines the industrial demands for commercial SOLEDs and the current status of SOLED development in industries and academia, and presents research guidelines for the development of SOLEDs that have high efficiency, long lifetime, and good processability to achieve commercialization.

Effect of Substituents with the Different Electron-Donating Abilities on Optoelectronic Properties of Bipolar Thioxanthone Derivatives

The synthesis and optoelectronic properties of four simple-structure thioxanthone derivatives employing thioxanthone as an acceptor unit, coupled with moieties having very different electron-donating abilities such as phenoxazine, 3,6-di-tert-butylcarbazole, 3,7-di-tert-butylphenothiazine, or 2,7-di-tert-butyl-9,9-dimethylacridane, are reported. The compounds form molecular glasses with glass transition temperatures reaching 116 °C. Ionization potentials of the compounds estimated by photoelectron emission method range from 5.42 to 5.74 eV. Thioxanthone derivatives containing 3,6-tert-butylcarbazole or 2,7-di-tert-butyl-9,9-dimethylacridane moieties with weak electron-donating strengths were characterized by bipolar charge transport with relatively close hole and electron mobility values of 6.8 × 10^-5/2.4 × 10^-5 and 3.1 × 10^-5/4.6 × 10^-6 cm²/(V s) recorded at 3.6 × 10⁵ V/cm. The other compounds demonstrated hole-transporting properties. The films of thioxanthones containing phenoxazine or 2,7-di-tert-butyl-9,9-dimethylacridane moieties showed efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence with a photoluminescence quantum yield of up to 50% due to the solid-state luminescence enhancement. Organic-light-emitting diodes containing the synthesized compounds as emitters showed very different external quantum efficiencies (0.9-10.3%) and blue, sky blue, green, or yellow electroluminescence colors, thus reflecting the effects of donor substituents.

Derivatives of Imidazole and Carbazole as Bifunctional Materials for Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

New derivatives of carbazole and diphenyl imidazole for potential multiple applications were synthesized and investigated. Their properties were studied by thermal, optical, photophysical, electrochemical, and photoelectrical measurements. The compounds exhibited relatively narrow blue light-emission bands, which is favorable for deep-blue electroluminescent devices. The synthesized derivatives of imidazole and carbazole were tested as fluorescent emitters for OLEDs. The device showed deep-blue emissions with CIE color coordinates of (0.16, 0.08) and maximum quantum efficiency of 1.1%. The compounds demonstrated high triplet energy values above 3.0 eV and hole drift mobility exceeding 10^-4 cm²/V·s at high electric fields. One of the compounds having two diphenyl imidazole moieties and tert-butyl-substituted carbazolyl groups showed bipolar charge transport with electron drift mobility reaching 10^-4 cm²/V·s at electric field of 8 × 10⁵ V/cm. The synthesized compounds were investigated as hosts for green, red and sky-blue phosphorescent OLEDs. The green-, red- and sky-blue-emitting devices demonstrated maximum quantum efficiencies of 8.3%, 6.4% and 7.6%, respectively.

Imidazolyl-Phenylcarbazole-Based Host Materials and Their Use for Co-host Designs in Phosphorescent OLEDs

In recent years, owing to the demand for high-efficiency phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices (PhOLEDs), many studies have been conducted on the development of bipolar host materials. A series of imidazolyl-phenylcarbazole-based host materials, i. e., im-CzP, im-CzPCz, im-CzPtBu, and im-OCzP, were synthesized to obtain high-efficiency green and red-emitting PhOLEDs. With im-OCzP as the host, satisfactory peak efficiencies of 22.2 (77.0 cd A^-1 and 93.1 lm W^-1 ) and 14.1 % (9.0 cd A^-1 and 10.1 lm W^-1 ) could be obtained, respectively. To further improve the performance of the devices, an electron transport material, bis-4,6-(3,5-di-3-pyridylphenyl)-2-methylpyrimidine (B3PyMPM) was selected to construct a co-hosted system. The efficiency of im-OCzP combined with B3PyMPM forming co-hosts could also achieve high values of 23.0 (80.0 cd A^-1 and 98.8 lm W^-1 ) and 16.5 % (10.2 cd A^-1 and 13.4 lm W^-1 ) for green and red PhOLEDs, respectively. These results exhibited that the proposed bipolar hosts have great flexibility in adjusting the carrier balance of EML in OLEDs, demonstrating their ingenious design and high potential.

Phenanthroimidazole-based chromophores for organic light-emitting diodes: synthesis, photophysical, and theoretical study

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) are gaining attention and making a significant contribution to the area of lighting and displays technology. The synthesis of new materials that can act as a host as well as emissive materials is crucial and efforts have been made in this direction in this research. Here, four star-shaped fluorophores, with a donor-acceptor (D-A) structure and with triphenylamine and phenanthroimidazole groups with different substitutions at the N₁ position of the imidazole moiety, were designed and synthesized. Synthesized fluorophores showed sufficient thermal stability (10% T_d in the range 230-280°C). Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectra of the fluorophores showed multiple absorption bands (bands in the UV region, due to π-π* transitions of the conjugated aromatic portion) and all fluorophores showed blue emission in dichloromethane solution. Electrochemical analysis indicated that all fluorophores had excellent oxidation and reduction characteristics. Theoretical calculations were also performed to better understand the structural and electronic properties of the synthesized fluorophores. All fluorophores had higher triplet (T₁ ) energy (ranging from 2.49-2.52 eV) than the widely used green (Ir(ppy)₃ -2.4 eV) and red (Ir (piq)₂ acac - 2.2 eV) dopant materials. These results indicated that these fluorophores would be useful as host materials for efficient green and red phosphorescent OLEDs.

Evolution of pure hydrocarbon hosts: simpler structure, higher performance and universal application in RGB phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

In the field of phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PhOLEDs), designing high-efficiency universal host materials for red, green and blue (RGB) phosphors has been quite a challenge. To date, most of the high-efficiency universal hosts reported incorporate heteroatoms, which have a crucial role in the device performance. However, the introduction of different kinds of heterocycles increases the design complexity and cost of the target material and also creates potential instability in the device performance. In this work, we show that pure aromatic hydrocarbon hosts designed with the 9,9′-spirobifluorene scaffold are high-efficiency and versatile hosts for PhOLEDs. With external quantum efficiencies of 27.3%, 26.0% and 27.1% for RGB PhOLEDs respectively, this work not only reports the first examples of high-efficiency pure hydrocarbon materials used as hosts in RGB PhOLEDs but also the highest performance reported to date for a universal host (including heteroatom-based hosts). This work shows that the PHC design strategy is promising for the future development of the OLED industry as a high-performance and low-cost option.

In this work, we propose pure hydrocarbon materials as universal hosts for high-efficiency red, green and blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes.

Recent Advances in Metal-Catalyzed Alkyl–Boron (C(sp3)–C(sp2)) Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Couplings

Boron chemistry has evolved to become one of the most diverse and applied fields in organic synthesis and catalysis. Various valuable reactions such as hydroborylations and Suzuki–Miyaura cross-couplings (SMCs) are now considered as indispensable methods in the synthetic toolbox of researchers in academia and industry. The development of novel sterically- and electronically-demanding C(sp3)–Boron reagents and their subsequent metal-catalyzed cross-couplings attracts strong attention and serves in turn to expedite the wheel of innovative applications of otherwise challenging organic adducts in different fields. This review describes the significant progress in the utilization of classical and novel C(sp3)–B reagents (9-BBN and 9-MeO-9-BBN, trifluoroboronates, alkylboranes, alkylboronic acids, MIDA, etc.) as coupling partners in challenging metal-catalyzed C(sp3)–C(sp2) cross-coupling reactions, such as B-alkyl SMCs after 2001.

Terphenyl backbone-based donor–π–acceptor dyads: geometric isomer effects on intramolecular charge transfer

The molecular geometry effects of ortho, meta, and para-terphenyl based donor–π–acceptor (D–π–A) dyads on intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) were studied to investigate structure-ICT relationships.

Management of transition dipoles in organic hole-transporting materials under solar irradiation for perovskite solar cells

In organic hole-transporting material (HTM)-based p−i−n planar perovskite solar cells, which have simple and low-temperature processibility feasible to flexible devices, the incident light has to pass through the HTM before reaching the perovskite layer. Therefore, photo-excited state of organic HTM could become important during the solar cell operation, but this feature has not usually been considered for the HTM design. Here, we prove that enhancing their property at their photo-excited states, especially their transition dipole moments, can be a methodology to develop high efficiency p−i−n perovskite solar cells. The organic HTMs are designed to have high transition dipole moments at the excited states and simultaneously to preserve those property during the solar cell operation by their extended lifetimes through the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer process, consequently reducing the charge recombination and improving extraction properties of devices. Their UV-filtering ability is also beneficial to enhance the photostability of devices.

In perovskite solar cells, the excited state property of hole-transport layer is not usually considered for the devices. Here the authors design organic hole-transport materials with high transition dipoles having extended lifetime at the excited states to improve the charge extraction of the devices.

De novo design of D-σ-A molecules as universal hosts for monochrome and white phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

Novel D–σ–A molecules were developed as single hosts to achieve high performances in monochrome and white organic light-emitting diodes.

Two novel D–σ–A host materials 11,11-bis(9-phenyl-9H-carbazol-3-yl)-11H-benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]indole (BII–BCz) and 4,4′-(11H-benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]indole-11,11-diyl)bis(N,N-diphenylaniline) (BII–TPA) are synthesized by using the sp³ carbon attached to a newly designed 11H-benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]indole building block to link two electron-donating groups. The resulting materials feature high triplet energy levels, good thermal properties and suitable photophysical properties as universal hosts for full-color phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Both BII–BCz and BII–TPA reveal excellent performances in blue, green, yellow, orange and red phosphorescent OLEDs with the same device structure. The employment of the new D–σ–A materials as single hosts in white OLEDs with a simple device structure allows us to achieve state-of-the-art performances. A single-emissive-layer white device based on BII–BCz demonstrates the highest performance with an external quantum efficiency up to 28.2% at 1000 cd m^–2. Furthermore, this device displays extremely stable emission spectra, with a ΔCIE of only (0.009, 0.005) from 1000 to 10 000 cd m^–2.

New highly fluorescent silver complexes and their thin films obtained by spin coating method

Thin, fluorescent films of novel silver(i) complexes were produced using a spin coating method.

Multifunctional Materials for High-Performance Double-Layer Organic Light-Emitting Diodes: Comparison of Isomers with and without Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with simple structures are attracting a lot of attention nowadays, though their performances are always inferior to those of the more complicated structures as multifunctional materials are rare. Here, we have designed and synthesized multifunctional isomers by combining electron-donating carbazole (Cz) and triphenylamine (TPA) units with electron-accepting triazine (Trz), namely, N-[4-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)phenyl]-N-[4-(9-phenyl-9H-carbazol-3-yl)phenyl]-[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-amine (CzTPA-p-Trz) and N-[3-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)phenyl]-N-[4-(9-phenyl-9H-carbazol-3-yl)phenyl]-[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-amine (CzTPA-m-Trz). The use of multiple electron-donating groups gives them suitable highest occupied molecular orbitals for hole injection and high mobilities for hole transport. Hole-only devices with CzTPA-m-Trz or CzTPA-p-Trz as the hole injection layers and hole transport layers show a higher hole current than the widely used 1,4,5,8,9,11-hexaazatriphenylenehexacarbonitrile/4,4'-N,N'-bis[N-(1-naphthyl)-N-phenylamino]biphenyl system. Interestingly, CzTPA-p-Trz is a fluorescent material with a high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY), while CzTPA-m-Trz shows weak thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). As expected, a CzTPA-p-Trz-based undoped double-layer green device achieved a higher external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 4.4% and a higher power efficiency (PE) of 11.8 lm/W. On the other hand, among double-layer devices doped with an orange phosphorescent dopant, a device based on TADF material, CzTPA-m-Trz, achieved higher peak EQE (23.5%) and PE (68.3 lm/W) than those of CzTPA-p-Trz (20.8% and 60.2 lm/W). Even at a high luminance of 5000 cd m^-2, a high EQE of 21.8% was retained for CzTPA-m-Trz-based devices. These results are even comparable to those for the state-of-the-art phosphorescent devices based on the same dopant with more complicated structures. The above results indicate that well-designed multifunctional materials are promising for high-performance OLEDs with simple structures.

Highly Efficient Deep-Blue Electroluminescence from a Charge-Transfer Emitter with Stable Donor Skeleton

Organic materials containing arylamines have been widely used as hole-transporting materials as well as emitters in organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs). However, it has been pointed out that the C-N bonds in these arylamines can easily suffer from degradation in excited states, especially in deep-blue OLEDs. In this work, phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazole (PI) is proposed as a potential donor with higher stability than those of arylamines. Using PI as the donor, a donor-acceptor type deep-blue fluorophore 1-phenyl-2-(4″-(1-phenyl-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-[1,1':4',1″-terphenyl]-4-yl)-1H-phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazole (BITPI) is designed and synthesized. Results from UV-aging test on neat films of BITPI and other three arylamine compounds demonstrate that PI is indeed a more stable donor comparing to common arylamines. An OLED using BITPI as an emitter exhibits good device performances (EQE over 7%) with stable deep-blue emission (color index: (0.15, 0.13)) and longer operation lifetime than the similarly structured device using arylamine-based emitter. Single-organic layer device based on BITPI also shows superior performances, which are comparable to the best results from the arylamine-based donor-acceptor emitters, suggesting that PI is a stable donor with good hole transport/injection capability.

Ultralong Persistent Room Temperature Phosphorescence of Metal Coordination Polymers Exhibiting Reversible pH-Responsive Emission

Ultra-long-persistent room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have attracted much attention and present various applications in illumination, displays, and the bioimaging field; however, the persistent RTP is generally from the inorganic phosphor materials to date. Herein, we show that the metal coordination polymers (CPs) could be new types of emerging long-lived RTP materials for potential sensor applications. First, two kinds of Cd-based CPs, Cd(m-BDC)(H2O) (1) and Cd(m-BDC)(BIM) (2) (m-BDC = 1,3-benzenedicarboxylic acid; BIM = benzimidazole), were obtained through a hydrothermal process, and the samples were found to exhibit two-dimensional layered structures, which are stabilized by interlayer C-H···π interaction and π···π interaction, respectively. The CPs show unexpected second-time-scale ultra-long-persistent RTP after the removal of UV excitation, and this persistent emission can be detected easily on a time scale of 0-10 s. The CPs also feature a tunable luminescence decay lifetime by adjusting their coordination situation and packing fashion of ligands. Theoretical calculation further indicates that the introduction of the second ligand could highly influence the electronic structure and intermolecular electron transfer toward tailoring the RTP of the CP materials. Moreover, CP 2 exhibits well-defined pH- and temperature-dependent phosphorescence responses. Therefore, this work provides a facile way to develop new type of CPs with steady-state and dynamic tuning of the RTP properties from both experimental and theoretical perspectives, which have potential applications in the areas of displays, pH/temperature sensors, and phosphorescence logic gates. On account of suitable incorporation of inorganic and organic building blocks, it can be expected that the ultra-long-persistent RTP CPs can be extended to other similar systems due to the highly tunable structures and facile synthesis routes.

Enhanced Electron Affinity and Exciton Confinement in Exciplex-Type Host: Power Efficient Solution-Processed Blue Phosphorescent OLEDs with Low Turn-on Voltage

A benzimidazole/phosphine oxide hybrid 1,3,5-tris(1-(4-(diphenylphosphoryl)phenyl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)benzene (TPOB) was newly designed and synthesized as the electron-transporting component to form an exciplex-type host with the conventional hole-transporting material tris(4-carbazoyl-9-ylphenyl)amine (TCTA). Because of the enhanced triplet energy and electron affinity of TPOB, the energy leakage from exciplex-state to the constituting molecule was eliminated. Using energy transfer from exciplex-state, solution-processed blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs) achieved an extremely low turn-on voltage of 2.8 V and impressively high power efficiency of 22 lm W(-1). In addition, the efficiency roll-off was very small even at luminance up to 10 000 cd m(-2), which suggested the balanced charge transfer in the emission layer. This study demonstrated that molecular modulation was an effective way to develop efficient exciplex-type host for high performanced PHOLEDs.

Small organic molecules based on oxazole/thiazole with excellent performances in green and red phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

Four small organic host materials based on oxazole/thiazole have been synthesized and fully characterized. The best performance of compound 2d was a maximum current efficiency of 50.7 cd A⁻¹ for green device and a maximum current efficiency of 18.7 cd A⁻¹ for red device.

High-brightness solution-processed phosphorescent OLEDs with pyrimidine-based iridium(iii) complexes

New complexes Ir(ppm)₂(pic) and Ir(ppm)₂(taz) emitted 555 and 532 nm light, respectively. Solution-processed organic light-emitting diodes based on Ir(ppm)₂(taz) showed high-brightness of 125072 cd m⁻², peak current efficiencies of 40.4 cd A⁻¹.

Pure hydrocarbon host materials based on spirofluorene with excellent performances for green phosphorescent light-emitting devices

Four novel pure hydrocarbon spirofluorene-based compounds were fully investigated for green electrophosphorescent devices.

High Power Efficiency Solution-Processed Blue Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Using Exciplex-Type Host with a Turn-on Voltage Approaching the Theoretical Limit

Three solution-processable exciplex-type host materials were successfully designed and characterized by equal molar blending hole transporting molecules with a newly synthesized electron transporting material, which possesses high thermal stability and good film-forming ability through a spin-coating technique. The excited-state dynamics and the structure-property relationships were systematically investigated. By gradually deepening the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level of electron-donating components, the triplet energy of exciplex hosts were increased from 2.64 to 3.10 eV. Low temperature phosphorescence spectra demonstrated that the excessively high triplet energy of exciplex would induce a serious energy leakage from the complex state to the constituting molecule. Furthermore, the low energy electromer state, which only exists under the electroexcitation, was found as another possible channel for energy loss in exciplex-based phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In particular, as quenching of the exciplex-state and the triplet exciton were largely eliminated, solution-processed blue phosphorescence OLEDs using the exciplex-type host achieved an extremely low turn-on voltage of 2.7 eV and record-high power efficiency of 22.5 lm W(-1), which were among the highest values in the devices with identical structure.

Phenothiazine-based bipolar green-emitters containing benzimidazole units: synthesis, photophysical and electroluminescence properties

A series of bipolar green emitters bearing hole-transporting phenothiazine and electron-transporting N-phenylbenzimidazole are synthesized and characterized by their photophysical, electrochemical and thermal properties.

Highly emissive excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) inspired 2-(2′-hydroxy)benzothiazole–fluorene motifs: spectroscopic and photophysical properties investigation

Efficient solid state emission of fluorene–benzothiazole motifs via ESIPT process have been discussed experimentally and theoretically.