Chiral TADF‐Active Polymers for High‐Efficiency Circularly Polarized Organic Light‐Emitting Diodes

Modulation of circularly polarized luminescence by swelling of microgels functionalized with enantiopure [Ru(bpy)3]2+ luminophores

Chemoresponsive microgels functionalized with enantiomeric Δ- or Λ-[Ru(bpy)3]2+ showed tunable chiroptical properties upon swelling and shrinking. The tuning is triggered by a modulation of the local mobility of [Ru(bpy)3]2+ upon addition of fructose, controlling interactions and distances between [Ru(bpy)3]2+ and phenylboronic acid.

Planar Chiral Multiple Resonance Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Materials for Efficient Circularly Polarized Electroluminescence

Chiral boron/nitrogen doped multiple resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR-TADF) emitters are promising for highly efficient and color-pure circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs). Herein, we report two pairs of MR-TADF materials (Czp-tBuCzB, Czp-POAB) based on planar chiral paracyclophane with photoluminescence quantum yields of up to 98 %. The enantiomers showed symmetric circularly polarized photoluminescence spectra with dissymmetry factors |g_PL | of up to 1.6×10^-3 in doped films. Meanwhile, the sky-blue CP-OLEDs with (R/S)-Czp-tBuCzB showed an external quantum efficiency of 32.1 % with the narrowest full-width at half-maximum of 24 nm among the reported CP-OLEDs, while the devices with (R/S)-Czp-POAB displayed the first nearly pure green CP electroluminescence with |g_EL | factors at the 10^-3 level. These results demonstrate the incorporation of planar chirality into MR-TADF emitter is a reliable strategy for constructing of efficient CP-OLEDs.

Induced CPL-Active Materials Based on Chiral Supramolecular Co-Assemblies

Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) has attracted much interest due to its potential applications on chiral photonic techniques and optoelectronic materials science. As known, dissymmetry factor (g_em ) of CPL is one essential factor for evaluating the features of CPL-active materials. Much attention has focused on how to increase the g_em value, which is one of the most important issues for CPL practical applications. Recently, more and more works have demonstrated that chiral supramolecular could provide the significant strategy to improve the g_em value through the orderly helical superstructure of chiral building blocks. Normally, this kind of chiral supramolecular assembly process can be accompanied by chirality transfer and induction mechanism, which can promote the amplification effect on the induced CPL of achiral dyes. In this review, we fully summarized recent advances on the induced CPL-active materials of chiral supramolecular co-assemblies, their applications in circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) and current challenges.

Tunable Circularly Polarized Luminescence via Chirality Induction and Energy Transfer from Organic Films to Semiconductor Nanocrystals

Circularly polarized luminescent (CPL) films with high dissymmetry factors hold great potential for optoelectronic applications. Herein, we propose a strategy for achieving strongly dissymetric CPL in nanocomposite films based on chirality induction and energy transfer to semiconductor nanocrystals. First, focusing on a purely organic system, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and CPL activity of organic liquid crystals (LCs) forming helical nanofilaments was detected, featuring green emission with high dissymmetry factors g_lum ∼ 10^-2. The handedness of helical filaments, and thus the sign of CPL, was controlled via minute amounts of a small chiral organic dopant. Second, nanocomposite films were fabricated by incorporating InP/ZnS semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) into the LC matrix, which induced the chiral assembly of QDs and endowed them with chiroptical properties. Due to the spectral matching of the components, energy transfer (ET) from LC to QDs was possible enabling a convenient way of tuning CPL wavelengths by varying the LC/QD ratio. As obtained, composite films exhibited absolute g_lum values up to ∼10^-2 and thermally on/off switchable luminescence. Overall, we demonstrate the induction of chiroptical properties by the assembly of nonchiral building QDs on the chiral organic template and energy transfer from organic films to QDs, representing a simple and versatile approach to tune the CPL activity of organic materials.

Chiral Multi-Resonance TADF Emitters Exhibiting Narrowband Circularly Polarized Electroluminescence with an EQE of 37.2

Highly efficient circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) emitters with narrowband emission remain a formidable challenge for circularly polarized OLEDs (CP-OLEDs). Here, a promising strategy for developing chiral emitters concurrently featuring multi-resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR-TADF) and circularly polarized electroluminescence (CPEL) is demonstrated by the integration of molecular rigidity, central chirality and MR effect. A pair of chiral green emitters denoted as (R)-BN-MeIAc and (S)-BN-MeIAc is designed. Benefited by the rigid and quasi-planar MR-framework, the enantiomers not only display mirror-image CPL spectra, but also exhibit TADF properties with a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 96 %, a narrow FWHM of 30 nm, and a high horizontal dipole orientation of 90 % in the doped film. Consequently, the enantiomer-based CP-OLEDs achieved excellent external quantum efficiencies of 37.2 % with very low efficiency roll-off, representing the highest device efficiency of all the reported CP-OLEDs.

Circularly Polarized White Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Spiro-Type Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Materials

In this study, we report the first circularly polarized white organic light-emitting diodes (CP-WOLEDs) based on all thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials. Two pairs of spiro-type TADF enantiomers, (R/S)-SPOCN (5,5'-((2,2',3,3'-tetrahydro-1,1'-spirobi[indene]-7,7'-diyl)bis(oxy))bis(4-(10H-phenoxazin-10-yl)phthalonitrile)) and (R/S)-OSFSO (2'-(trifluoromethyl)-spiro[quinolino[3,2,1-kl]phenoxazine-9,9'-thioxanthene]-10',10'-dioxide), serve as emitters with complementary emission. The CP-OLEDs exhibit warm white emission with a CIE coordinate of (0.35, 0.46). Besides, decent device performances are observed with an external quantum efficiency of up to 21.6 % at maximum and 11.8 % at 1000 cd m^-2 . Obvious circularly polarized electroluminescence signals are detected with a dissymmetry factor |g_EL | of around 3.0×10^-3 . This is the first report of CP-WOLEDs that can harvest both singlet and triplet excitons, which provides a feasible strategy for the development of CP-WOLEDs with remarkable device performances.

Amplified Circularly Polarized Electroluminescence Behavior Triggered by Helical Nanofibers from Chiral Co-assembly Polymers

Two chiral binaphthyl polymers (R/S-P1 and R/S-P2) with different dihedral angles of the binaphthyl moiety were chosen as chiral inducers to construct chiral co-assemblies with an achiral pyrene-naphthalimide dye (NPy) and then acted as the emitting layer (EML) of circularly polarized electroluminescence (CP-EL) devices. The anchored dihedral angle of R/S-P2 not only exhibited the enhanced chirality signal, but also had a strong chirality-inducing effect on the achiral NPy dye in the chiral co-assembly (R/S-P2)_0.6 -(NPy)_0.4 . After annealing at 120 °C, the CPL signal (|g_em |) of ordered helical nano-fibers (R/S-P2)_0.6 -(NPy)_0.4 was amplified to 5.6×10^-2 , which was about 6-fold larger than that of (R/S-P1)_0.6 -(NPy)_0.4 . The amplified g_em value of (R/S-P2)_0.6 -(NPy)_0.4 was due to the formation of a helical co-assembly through the strong π-π stacking interaction between the R/S-P2 and the achiral NPy. This kind of ordered helical nano-fibers (R/S-P2)_0.6 -(NPy)_0.4 acted as the EML of CP-OLEDs, and achieved an excellent CP-EL performance (|g_EL |=4.8×10^-2 ).

TADF-Sensitized Fluorescent Enantiomers: A New Strategy for High-Efficiency Circularly Polarized Electroluminescence*

A promising strategy of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) sensitized circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) has been proposed for improving the electroluminescence efficiencies of circularly polarized fluorescent emitters. Compared with chiral TADF emitters which suffer from the dilemma of small ΔE_ST accompanied by small k_r , the TADF-sensitized CPL (TSCP) strategy using TADF molecules as sensitizers and CP-FL molecules as emitters might be the most promising method to construct high-performance circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs). Consequently, by taking advantage of the theoretically 100 % exciton utilization of TADF sensitizers, especially, by designing CP-FL emitters with high PLQY, narrow FWHM and large g_lum values, TSCP-type CP-OLEDs with excellent overall performances can be realized.