New 2-(2,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)benzimidazolines

New 2-(2,4-dihydroxyphenyl)benzimidazolines are synthesized in an easily accessible approach. The method is based on the reaction of resorcinol with in situ-formed electrophilic N-ethoxycarbonylbenzimidazolium reagents. The structure of the two newly formed products was spectrally characterized by 1D and 2D NMR, IR, and MS spectral analyses.

Recognition-Induced Enhanced Emission of Core-Fluorescent ESIPT-type Macrocycles

Core-fluorescent cavitands based on 2-(2'-resorcinol)benzimidazole fluorophores (RBIs) merged with the resorcin[4]arene skeleton were designed and synthesized. The cavitands, due to the presence of intramolecular hydrogen bonds and increased acidity, show excited state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) and readily undergo deprotonation to form dianionic cavitands, capable of strong binding to organic cations. The changes in fluorescence are induced by deprotonation and binding events and involve huge Stokes shifts (due to emission from anionic double keto tautomers) and cation-selective enhancement of emission originating from the restriction of intramolecular motion (RIR) upon recognition in the cavity. Ab initio calculations indicate that the macrocyclic scaffold stabilizes the ground state tautomeric forms of the fluorophores that are not observed for non-macrocyclic analogs. In the excited state, the emitting forms for both macrocyclic scaffolds and non-macrocyclic analogs are anionic double keto tautomers, which are the result of excited state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) or excited state double proton transfer (ESDPT).

Ambipolar Self-Host Functionalization Accelerates Blue Multi-Resonance Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence with Internal Quantum Efficiency of 100

Emerging multi-resonance (MR) thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters can combine 100% exciton harvesting and high color purity for their organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). However, the highly planar configurations of MR molecules lead to intermolecular-interaction-induced quenching. A feasible way is integrating host segments into MR molecules, namely a "self-host" strategy, but without involving additional charge transfer and/or vibrational components to excited states. Herein, an ambipolar self-host featured MR emitter, tCBNDADPO, is demonstrated, whose ambipolar host segment (DADPO) significantly and comprehensively improves the TADF properties, especially greatly accelerated singlet radiative rate constant of 2.11 × 10⁸ s^-1 and exponentially reduced nonradiative rate constants. Consequently, at the same time as preserving narrowband blue emission with an FWHM of ≈28 nm at a high doping concentration of 30%, tCBNDADPO reveals state-of-the-art photoluminescence and electroluminescence quantum efficiencies of 99% and 30%, respectively. The corresponding 100% internal quantum efficiency of tCBNDADPO supported by an ultrasimple trilayer and heavily doped device demonstrates the feasibility of the ambipolar self-host strategy for constructing practically applicable MR materials.

Achieving 20% External Quantum Efficiency for Fully Solution-Processed Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Dendrimers with Flexible Chains

Actualizing high-efficiency thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with fully wet processes is of great significance to the development of purely organic electroluminescence and the application of large-area OLED displays. Herein, new strategies are proposed to develop the TADF dendrimers with tunable colors by adjusting the way of linking branches to the core and the numbers of peripheral branches. Due to an energy gradient and efficient exciton utilization in the core-dendron system, the solution-processed OLEDs with the four dendrimers 5CzBN-O-Cz, 5CzBN-O-2Cz, 5CzBN-Cz, and 5CzBN-2Cz all give rise to low turn-on voltages and great device efficiency. Notably, 5CzBN-2Cz affords record-high fully solution-processed TADF OLEDs with external quantum efficiency of above 20%, which is significantly comparable to the efficiency of TADF OLEDs based on vacuum deposition. The work offers a guideline for designing solution-processable materials, paving the way toward practical applications of large-area fully solution-processed OLEDs.

Multinuclear Iridium Complex Encapsulated by Oligocarbazole Dendrons for Enhanced Nondoped Device Efficiency

A dendritic multinuclear Ir complex, namely Cz-3IrB-IrG, has been designed and synthesized by introducing the second-generation oligocarbazole dendrons into its periphery. Because of the characteristic encapsulation, the intermolecular interactions could be effectively alleviated to prevent the unwanted triplet-triplet annihilation stemmed from the outer blue Ir complexes. Compared with 3IrB-IrG in the absence of dendrons, the film photoluminescence quantum yield of Cz-3IrB-IrG is greatly increased from 0.46 to 0.82 together with a small blue-shifted emission from 524 to 520 nm. On the basis of Cz-3IrB-IrG as the emitting layer alone, the nondoped device realizes a promising luminous efficiency of 40.9 cd/A (12.0%), much higher than that of 3IrB-IrG (32.6 cd/A, 9.7%). The obtained improvement clearly indicates that further dendronization toward multinuclear Ir complex will provide an alternative strategy to construct highly efficient phosphors used for nondoped phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes.

Diarylboron-Based Asymmetric Red-Emitting Ir(III) Complex for Solution-Processed Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diode with External Quantum Efficiency above 28

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are one of the most promising technologies for future displays and lighting. Compared with the blue and green OLEDs that have achieved very high efficiencies by using phosphorescent Ir(III) complexes, the red OLEDs still show relatively low efficiencies because of the lack of high-performance red-emitting Ir(III) complexes. Here, three highly efficient asymmetric red-emitting Ir(III) complexes with two different cyclometalating ligands made by incorporating only one electron-deficient triarylboron group into the nitrogen heterocyclic ring are reported. These complexes show enhanced photoluminescence quantum yields up to 0.96 and improved electron transporting capacity. In addition, the asymmetric structure can help to improve the solubility of Ir(III) complexes, which is crucial for fabricating OLEDs using the solution method. The photoluminescent and oxidation-reduction properties of these Ir(III) complexes are investigated both experimentally and theoretically. Most importantly, a solution-processed red OLED achieves extremely high external quantum efficiency, current efficiency, and power efficiency with values of 28.5%, 54.4 cd A-1, and 50.1 lm W-1, respectively, with very low efficiency roll-off. Additionally, the related device has a significantly extended operating lifetime compared with the reference device. These results demonstrate that the asymmetric diarylboron-based Ir(III) complexes have great potential for fabricating high-performance red OLEDs.

Self-Host Blue Dendrimer Comprised of Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Core and Bipolar Dendrons for Efficient Solution-Processable Nondoped Electroluminescence

A self-host thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) dendrimer POCz-DPS for solution-processed nondoped blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) was designed and synthesized, in which the bipolar phosphine oxide carbazole moiety was introduced by alkyl chain to ensure balanced charge transfer. The investigation of physical properties showed that the bipolar dendrons not only improve the morphological stability but also restrain the concentration quenching effect of the TADF emissive core. The spin-coated OLEDs featuring POCz-DPS as the host-free blue emitter achieved the highest external quantum efficiency (7.3%) and color purity compared with those of doped or nondoped devices based on the parent molecule DMOC-DPS, which indicates that incorporating the merits of encapsulation and bipolar dendron is an effective way to improve the electroluminescent performance of the TADF emitter used for a solution-processed nondoped device.

Efficient green electroluminescence based on an iridium(iii) complex with different device structures

Organic light-emitting diodes based on an iridium complex using different device structure show high performances with a maximum current efficiency of 86.5 cd A⁻¹and a maximum power efficiency of 52.2 lm W⁻¹, respectively.