Lin Song Cui

Controlling Singlet–Triplet Energy Splitting for Deep-Blue Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Emitters

The development of efficient metal-free organic emitters with thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) properties for deep-blue emission is still challenging. A new family of deep-blue TADF emitters based on a donor-acceptor architecture has been developed. The electronic interaction between donor and acceptor plays a key role in the TADF mechanism. Deep-blue OLEDs fabricated with these TADF emitters achieved high external quantum efficiencies over 19.2 % with CIE coordinates of (0.148, 0.098).

Benzimidazobenzothiazole-Based Bipolar Hosts to Harvest Nearly All of the Excitons from Blue Delayed Fluorescence and Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

Much effort has been devoted to developing highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that function through phosphorescence or thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). However, efficient host materials for blue TADF and phosphorescent guest emitters are limited because of their requirement of high triplet energy levels. Herein, we report the rigid acceptor unit benzimidazobenzothiazole (BID-BT), which is suitable for use in bipolar hosts in blue OLEDs. The designed host materials, based on BID-BT, possess high triplet energy and bipolar carrier transport ability. Both blue TADF and phosphorescent OLEDs containing BID-BT-based derivatives exhibit external quantum efficiencies as high as 20 %, indicating that these hosts allow efficient triplet exciton confinement appropriate for blue TADF and phosphorescent guest emitters.

Controlling Synergistic Oxidation Processes for Efficient and Stable Blue Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Devices

Efficient sky-blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) employing thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) display a three orders of magnitude increase in lifetime, which is superior to those of controlled phosphorescent OLEDs used in this study. The combination of electro-oxidation and photo-oxidation of the TADF emitters in their triplet excited-states is suppressed through molecule design and device engineering.

Long-lived efficient delayed fluorescence organic light-emitting diodes using n-type hosts

Organic light-emitting diodes have become a mainstream display technology because of their desirable features. Third-generation electroluminescent devices that emit light through a mechanism called thermally activated delayed fluorescence are currently garnering much attention. However, unsatisfactory device stability is still an unresolved issue in this field. Here we demonstrate that electron-transporting n-type hosts, which typically include an acceptor moiety in their chemical structure, have the intrinsic ability to balance the charge fluxes and broaden the recombination zone in delayed fluorescence organic electroluminescent devices, while at the same time preventing the formation of high-energy excitons. The n-type hosts lengthen the lifetimes of green and blue delayed fluorescence devices by > 30 and 1000 times, respectively. Our results indicate that n-type hosts are suitable to realize stable delayed fluorescence organic electroluminescent devices.OLEDs based on thermally activated delayed fluorescence have shown high fluorescence efficiency but poor lifetime. Herein, Cui et al. demonstrate that the use of n-type host molecules can increase the device lifetime by 30 times and 1000 times for green and blue OLEDs, respectively.

Donor–σ–Acceptor Motifs: Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Emitters with Dual Upconversion

A family of organic emitters with a donor-σ-acceptor (D-σ-A) motif is presented. Owing to the weakly coupled D-σ-A intramolecular charge-transfer state, a transition from the localized excited triplet state (3 LE) and charge-transfer triplet state (3 CT) to the charge-transfer singlet state (1 CT) occurred with a small activation energy and high photoluminescence quantum efficiency. Two thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) components were identified, one of which has a very short lifetime of 200-400 ns and the other a longer TADF lifetime of the order of microseconds. In particular, the two D-σ-A materials presented strong blue emission with TADF properties in toluene. These results will shed light on the molecular design of new TADF emitters with short delayed lifetimes.

The role of fluorine-substitution on the π-bridge in constructing effective thermally activated delayed fluorescence molecules

Two thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters 9′-(4-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-2-fluorophenyl)-9′H-9,3′:6′,9′′-tercarbazole (TCTZ-F) and 9′-(4-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-2,6-difluorophenyl)-9′H-9,3′:6′,9′′-tercarbazole (TCTZ-2F) were synthesized and compared to the previously reported molecule 9′-(4-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)phenyl)-9′H-9,3′:6′,9′′-tercarbazole (TCTZ) to explore the possible effects of the fluorine atom(s) on the molecular conformation, electronic coupling between the donor and acceptor groups, and consequently the photophysical behavior of the emitters. Specifically, the TCTZ-F molecule was calculated to have a smaller dihedral angle than TCTZ-2F and a smaller S1–T1 gap than TCTZ, which led it to have the highest photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) among this series of compounds. An OLED fabricated with TCTZ-F as the emitter achieved the highest external quantum efficiencies (22.5%) of this series, indicating that fluorination can play a useful role in TADF emitters.