Chiral dual-core emitters based-on through-space coupling for high-performance OLEDs with little efficiency roll-off

Abstract

Through-space coupling (TSC) is the essential component of π-stacked systems and has promise in charge transport and electronic communication, which is of great significance for the construction of efficient and stable photoelectric devices. In this work, we demonstrate a chiral dual-core strategy for the design of high-performance organic circularly polarized emitters, which features of connecting two thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) luminophores with chiral linkage that allows efficient TSC to occur. Using this strategy, a pair of dual-core enantiomers, R/S-DNKP, were designed and synthesized by linking two benzophenone derivatives with a 1,1′-bi-2-naphthol unit. Compared to the mono-core counterpart NKP, the dual-core emitters exhibited the photoluminescence quantum yields up to 94 %. Moreover, benefiting from their chiral helical folding configurations, the R/S-DNKP enantiomers exhibited the luminescence dissymmetry factor (|glum|) value of +2.7 × 10−3 and −2.6 × 10−3 in doped films. Notably, the electroluminescence devices based on the R/S-DNKP enantiomers achieved external quantum efficiency values of 21.5 % and 19.7 % with little roll-off. It is believed that this molecular design strategy will pave new routes for the development of high-performance chiral emitters for future organic photonic devices.