High-Performance, Simplified Fluorescence and Phosphorescence Hybrid White Organic Light-Emitting Devices Allowing Complete Triplet Harvesting

Control of Fluorescence of Organic Dyes in the Solid-State by Supramolecular Interactions

Fluorescent organic dyes play an essential role in the creation of new "smart" materials. Fragments and functional groups capable of free rotation around single bonds can significantly change the fluorescent organic dye's electronic structure under analyte effects, phase state transitions, or changes in temperature, pressure, and media polarity. Dependencies between steric and electronic structures become highly important in transition from a solution to a solid-state. Such transitions are accompanied by a significant increase in the dye molecular structure's rigidity due to supramolecular associates' formation such as H-bonding, π···π and dipole-dipole interactions. Among those supramolecular effects, H-bonding interactions, first of all, lead to significant molecular packing changes between loose or rigid structures, thus affecting the fluorescent dye's electronic states' energy and configuration, its fluorescent signal's position and intensity. All the functional groups and heteroatoms that are met in the organic dyes seem to be involved in the control of fluorescence via H-bonding: C-H···N, C-H···π, S = O···H-C, P = O···H, C-H···O, NH···N, C - H···C, C - H···Se, N-H···O, C - H···F, C-F···H. Effects of molecular packing of fluorescent organic dyes are successfully used in developing mechano-, piezo-, thermo- fluorochromes materials for their applications in the optical recording of information, sensors, security items, memory elements, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) technologies.

Advances in Blue Exciplex–Based Organic Light-Emitting Materials and Devices

Exciplexes possessing thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) characteristics have received much attention in the fields of organic light-emitting materials and devices over the past decade. In general, an exciplex is a physical mixture between a donor (D) with hole transport properties and an acceptor (A) with electron transport characteristics, and the energy difference between the lowest excited singlet state and the lowest excited triplet state is usually fairly small in terms of the long-range charge-transfer process from D to A. In the processes of photoluminescence and electroluminescence, triplet excitons can be converted to singlet excitons through reverse intersystem crossing and then radiate photons to achieve TADF. As a consequence, triplet excitons can be effectively harvested, and the exciton utilization can be significantly enhanced. Up to now, a large number of exciplexes have been developed and applied to organic light-emitting devices. Notably most of them showed green or red emission, while blue exciplexes are relatively few owing to the spectrum characteristics of the large red-shift and broadened emission. In this study, the latest progress of blue exciplex–based organic light-emitting materials and devices is briefly reviewed, and future research is prospected.

Disentangling Multiple Effects on Excited-State Intramolecular Charge Transfer among Asymmetrical Tripartite PPI-TPA/PCz Triads

By utilizing the bipolarity of 1,2-diphenylphenanthroimidazole (PPI), two types of asymmetrical tripartite triads (PPI-TPA and PPI-PCz) were designed with triphenylamine (TPA) and 9-phenylcarbazole (PCz). These triads are deep-blue luminescent materials with a high fluorescence quantum yield of nearly 100 %. To trace the photophysical behaviors of these triads, their excited-state evolution channels and interchromophoric interactions were investigated by ultrafast time-resolved transient absorption and excited-state theoretical calculations. The results suggest that the electronic nature, asymmetrical tripartite structure, and electron-hole distance of these triads, as well as solvent polarity, determine the lifetime of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT). Interestingly, PPI-PCz triads show anti-Kasha ICT, and the charge-transfer direction among the triads is adjustable. For the PPI-TPA triad, the electron is transferred from TPA to PPI, whereas for the PPI-PCz triad the electron is pushed from PPI to PCz. Exploration of the excited-state ICT in these triads may pave the way to design better luminescent materials in the future.

Highly Efficient and Color-Stable Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence White Light-Emitting Diodes Featured with Single-Doped Single Emissive Layers

Despite their merits of environmental friendliness, low cost, and large-scale production, thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) based white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) for daily lighting applications still face the formidable challenges of structural simplification and controllable exciton allocation. Here, the state-of-the-art full-TADF WOLEDs with features of the single-doped single emissive layers (EMLs) and ultrasimple trilayer structure are demonstrated. The EMLs are binary systems as yellow TADF emitter (4CzTPNBu) doped blue TADF matrix (ptBCzPO₂ TPTZ) with the large steric hindrance and mismatched frontier molecular orbital energy levels to effectively restrain excessive blue-to-yellow triplet exciton transfer and host-dopant interaction induced triplet quenching. Simultaneously, Förster resonance energy transfer is utilized to optimize exciton allocation for the balance of blue and yellow emissions, giving rise to the photoluminescence quantum yield beyond 90%. Consequently, these single-doped EMLs endow their cool white, pure white, and warm white diodes with the high-quality and ultrastable white light and the 100% exciton utilization efficiencies through the extremely simple structures, making them competent for the diverse daily lighting applications.

Bipolar Blue Host Emitter with Unity Quantum Yield Allows Full Exciton Radiation in Single-Emissive-Layer Hybrid White Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

Phosphorescence/fluorescence hybrid white organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are highly appealing for solid-state lighting. One major challenge is how to fully utilize the electrically generated excitons for light output. Herein, an efficient strategy to realize full exciton radiation is successfully revealed by a judicious molecular design and suitable device engineering. A blue host emitter TP-PPI is designed and synthesized, exhibiting a near 100% photoluminescence quantum yield and a high triplet energy level, enabling high-performance blue fluorescence and sensitization of a yellow phosphorescent dopant. Full exciton radiation in hybrid white OLEDs is demonstrated with a single emitting layer formed by doping a yellow phosphor (PO-01) into TP-PPI. Near 100% exciton utilization and state-of-the-art external quantum efficiency of 27.5% are achieved with the high-efficiency blue-emitting host and an electron-trap engineered device architecture.

Design of efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence blue host for high performance solution-processed hybrid white organic light emitting diodes

Developing a solution-processible blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitter for hybrid white organic light emitting diodes (WOLEDs) is still a challenge. In this work, two TADF blue emitters are designed and synthesized to explore a common strategy to qualify the small molecular TADF material as a solution-processible blue host. Systematic studies find that the molecular encapsulation by introducing unconjugated carbazoles as steric shields not only keeps the intrinsic TADF feature unchanged, but also effectively suppress the intermolecular interaction induced exciton quenching, which makes the material more efficient for solution-processing. The optimized solution-processed hybrid WOLEDs based on the encapsulated TADF blue host realized a highly efficient device performance with a maximum current efficiency (CE), power efficiency (PE) and external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 45.6 cd A-1, 40.9 lm W-1 and 17.0%, respectively, which are three times higher in device efficiency and twenty times higher in device lifetime than the corresponding device with an unencapsulated TADF blue host. Furthermore, the obtained device exhibits a high electroluminescence (EL) above 20 000 cd m-2 and a stable EL spectrum with nearly unchanged Commission International de L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinate at a wide range of applied voltages. These results clearly demonstrate that the molecular encapsulation of the TADF blue host is a superior and promising strategy to achieve high performance and color stable solution-processed hybrid WOLEDs.

Novel yellow thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters for highly efficient full-TADF WOLEDs with low driving voltages and remarkable color stability

Novel yellow thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters were developed for full-TADF white organic light-emitting diodes with a stable CRI of 72 and efficiencies of 48.22 cd A⁻¹ and 20.16%.

Hybrid warm-white organic light-emitting device based on tandem structure

We realized an efficient hybrid tandem warm white organic light-emitting device with extremely stable color purity in forward direction by employing an easy-fabrication charge generation unit (CGU) combining 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11-Hexaazatriphenylene-hexacarbonitrile with ultrathin bilayers of LiF and Al. The tandem white device exhibits maximum efficiencies of 37.3 cd/A, 23.3 lm/W and still remains at high efficiencies of 34.4 cd/A, 17 lm/W at the luminance of 1000 cd/m². When the operating current density increases from 5 mA/cm² to 30 mA/cm², the variations in Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates are only (0.007, 0.003). Moreover, we also studied the cause of color variation in tandem white device by performing systematic optical simulation and discovered the origin of alleviation in efficiency roll-off for tandem white device by applying triplet-polaron quenching (TPQ) model.

Interfacial TADF Exciplex as a Tool to Localize Excitons, Improve Efficiency, and Increase OLED Lifetime

In this work, we employ a thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) exciplex formed between the emissive layer (EML) host, 26DCzPPy, and the electron transport layer (ETL) 2,4,6-tris[3-(diphenylphosphinyl)phenyl]-1,3,5-triazine at the interface between the EML and the ETL to improve the stability and efficiency of a phosphorescence organic light-emitting diode based on Ir(dmpq)₂acac. We show that the presence of the TADF exciplex at the EML-ETL interface induces an efficient localization of the recombination zone, which is confined within the 5 nm thick EML. Furthermore, the TADF exciplex allows harvesting of the holes and electrons that piled up at the EML-ETL interface and transfers the resultant excited state energy to the phosphorescent emitter through Förster and/or Dexter energy transfer. This approach effectively improves the LT90 of devices from <1 min to 6 h by limiting recombination processes outside of the 5 nm EML.

High-Performance White Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Simplified Structure Incorporating Novel Exciplex-Forming Host

It is a challenge to engineer white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) with high efficiency, low operating voltage, good color quality, and low efficiency roll-off, simultaneously. Herein, we employ a novel exciplex to solve this problem, which mixes a bipolar host material 2,6-bis(3-(carbazol-9-yl)phenyl)pyridine (26DCzPPy) with a common electron-transporting material 4,6-bis[3,5-(dipyrid-4-yl)phenyl]-2-methylpyrimidine (B4PyMPM) to form the host for a blue emitter iridium(III)bis(4,6-(difluorophenyl)-pyridinato- N,C²') picolinate (FIrpic). The blue OLED with maximum power efficiency (PE) over 48 lm W^-1 and Commission International de I'Eclairage chromaticity diagram (0.17, 0.36) was achieved. To obtain white light emission, a complementary orange emission layer is used, which consists of the bis(4-phenylth-ieno[3,2- c]pyridine)(acetylacetonate)iridium(III) (PO-01) doped into the single host of 26DCzPPy adjacent to the blue emission layer. Benefiting from the exciplex and effective utilization of the excitons by using the optimized multifunctional device structure, the WOLEDs remarkably exhibit maximum external quantum efficiency, PE, and current efficiency of 28.5%, 95.5 lm W^-1, and 82.0 cd A^-1, respectively. At the luminance of 100 cd m^-2, it maintains the values of 27.2%, 90.2 lm W^-1, and 78.4 cd A^-1, respectively. Furthermore, the WOLEDs have a low threshold voltage of about 2.6 V and remain around 4.0 V at 10 000 cd m^-2. These results indicate that the exciplex-forming co-host 26DCzPPy:B4PyMPM can provide an effective strategy to fabricate high-efficiency WOLEDs for potential applications.

High light-quality OLEDs with a wet-processed single emissive layer

High light-quality and low color temperature are crucial to justify a comfortable healthy illumination. Wet-process enables electronic devices cost-effective fabrication feasibility. We present herein low color temperature, blue-emission hazards free organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) with very-high light-quality indices, that with a single emissive layer spin-coated with multiple blackbody-radiation complementary dyes, namely deep-red, yellow, green and sky-blue. Specifically, an OLED with a 1,854 K color temperature showed a color rendering index (CRI) of 90 and a spectrum resemblance index (SRI) of 88, whose melatonin suppression sensitivity is only 3% relative to a reference blue light of 480 nm. Its maximum retina permissible exposure limit is 3,454 seconds at 100 lx, 11, 10 and 6 times longer and safer than the counterparts of compact fluorescent lamp (5,920 K), light emitting diode (5,500 K) and OLED (5,000 K). By incorporating a co-host, tris(4-carbazoyl-9-ylphenyl)amine (TCTA), the resulting OLED showed a current efficiency of 24.9 cd/A and an external quantum efficiency of 24.5% at 100 cd/m². It exhibited ultra-high light quality with a CRI of 93 and an SRI of 92. These prove blue-hazard free, high quality and healthy OLED to be fabrication feasible via the easy-to-apply wet-processed single emissive layer with multiple emitters.

Ultrahigh-Efficiency Green PHOLEDs with a Voltage under 3 V and a Power Efficiency of Nearly 110 lm W-1 at Luminance of 10 000 cd m-2

Maintaining high power efficiency (PE) under high brightness is still a pressing problem for the practical application of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Here, ultrahigh-efficiency green phosphorescent OLEDs (PHOLEDs) with a record-low voltage at luminance above 5000 cd m^-2 are fabricated, by developing a novel anthracene/pyridine derivative as the electron-transporting material (ETM) combined with a material displaying thermally activated delayed fluorescence as the host. The pyridine units of the ETM not only facilitate charge injection, but also enhance the electron-transporting mobility, profiting from the closely packed molecules caused by the intermolecular H-bonding. The optimized green PHOLEDs show record-low driving voltages of 2.76 and 2.92 V, with EQEs/PEs of 28.0%/102 lm W^-1 and 27.9%/97 lm W^-1 at 5000 and 10 000 cd m^-2 , respectively. Furthermore, device optimization exhibits an unprecedented high PE of 109 lm W^-1 at 10 000 cd m^-2 with voltage under 3 V. Those values are the state-of-the-art among all reported green OLEDs so far, paving their way toward practical applications.

Guest concentration, bias current, and temperature-dependent sign inversion of magneto-electroluminescence in thermally activated delayed fluorescence devices

Non-emissive triplet excited states in devices that undergo thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) can be up-converted to singlet excited states via reverse intersystem crossing (RISC), which leads to an enhanced electroluminescence efficiency. Exciton-based fluorescence devices always exhibit a positive magneto-electroluminescence (MEL) because intersystem crossing (ISC) can be suppressed effectively by an external magnetic field. Conversely, TADF devices should exhibit a negative MEL because RISC is suppressed by the external magnetic field. Intriguingly, we observed a positive MEL in TADF devices. Moreover, the sign of the MEL was either positive or negative, and depended on experimental conditions, including doping concentration, current density and temperature. The MEL observed from our TADF devices demonstrated that ISC in the host material and RISC in the guest material coexisted. These competing processes were affected by the experimental conditions, which led to the sign change of the MEL. This work gives important insight into the energy transfer processes and the evolution of excited states in TADF devices.

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.

Recent advances in organic thermally activated delayed fluorescence materials

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence: harvesting dark triplet excitons to generate bright emissive singlet excitons.

Ultra-simple white organic light-emitting diodes employing only two complementary colors with color-rendering index beyond 90

This ultra-simple di-chromatic WOLED, using only three organic materials, achieves an ultra-high CRI of 90, which is even comparable with other reported three-color, four-color, and five-color WOLEDs.