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Heptagonal intramolecular-lock strategy enables high-performance thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters

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Abstract

The development of highly efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters is persistently pursued for the application of organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) in full-colour display and solid-state lighting. Herein, we present a heptagonal intramolecular-lock strategy to design high-performance TADF emitters. As a proof-of-concept, a new type of tribenzotropone (TBP) acceptor has been designed and synthesized by a cascade decarboxylative cyclization of aryl oxoacetic acid derivative with biphenyl boronic acid. Compared with the unlocked benzophenone (BP) acceptor, the TBP acceptor has a highly twisted heptagonal geometry with moderate rigidity and flexibility, which enables a high-performance TADF emitter with a small single-triplet energy gap(ΔEST) of 0.04 eV, a high photoluminescence quantum yield (ΦPL) of 99% and a large horizontal orientation factor (Θ//) of 84.0%. Consequently, highly efficient OLEDs with an external quantum efficiency as high as 33.8% are assembled, which is significantly higher than those of DPAC-BP with a highly rotatable BP acceptor (23.8%) as well as DPAC-FO with a rigid fluorenone (FO) acceptor (6.9%).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22275127, 22031007, 22005204). We thank Dr. Jing Li (Sichuan University) for the assistance with NMR measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Technology of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China

    Zhenmei Huang, Zhengyang Bin & Jingsong You

  2. Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Dezhi Yang & Dongge Ma

Authors
  1. Zhenmei Huang
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  2. Dezhi Yang
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  3. Dongge Ma
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  4. Zhengyang Bin
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Correspondence to Zhengyang Bin or Jingsong You.

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Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Supporting information The supporting information is available online at chem.scichina.com and link.springer.com/journal/11426. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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Huang, Z., Yang, D., Ma, D. et al. Heptagonal intramolecular-lock strategy enables high-performance thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters. Sci. China Chem. 67, 1181–1186 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-023-1869-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-023-1869-4

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