Carbazole-based polysiloxane hosts for highly efficient solution-processed blue electrophosphorescent devices

Abstract

The efficient host materials containing carbazole moieties linked to the backbone of polysiloxane through a phenyl bridge have been synthesized and characterized. They exhibit good film forming ability, high thermal decomposition temperatures and suitable glass transition temperatures, so as to form stable amorphous states. Moreover, the silicon–oxygen linkage disrupts their conjugation and results in a sufficiently high triplet energy level (3.0 eV). Iridium bis(4,6-difluorophenyl)pyridinato-N,C2 picolinate (FIrpic)-based devices using them as hosts show good overall performance with low efficiency roll-off. The device using PCzMSi as the host demonstrates the best performance with a maximum current efficiency of 22.8 cd A−1, a maximum power efficiency of 9.4 lm W−1 and a maximum external quantum efficiency of 11.9% at a practical luminance of 1165 cd m−2. Even at a brightness of 5000 cd m−2 level, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) still remains as high as 10%, suggesting a gentle roll-off of device efficiency at high current density. In addition, typically, the host PCzMSi film displays good mechanical performance by a nanoindentation technique to meet the practical application. These results demonstrate that the design of polysiloxane-based host materials is a promising approach to realize high performance solution-processed blue phosphorescent polymer light emitting diodes (PhPLEDs).