Effect of donor substituents on thermally activated delayed fluorescence of diphenylsulfone derivatives

Abstract

Diphenylsulfones substituted by acridan, carbazole, phenothiazine and phenoxazine moieties were synthesized and characterized by thermal analysis, UV-, steady-state and time-resolved luminescent spectrometries, cyclic voltametry. Quantum chemical calculations on the molecular level were performed to interpret photophysical properties of the derivatives. Structural parameters, electronic properties, HOMO-LUMO gaps, molecular orbital densities, ionization potentials, reorganization energies were determined. The lowest excitation energies and the wavelengths of absorption maxima were also estimated using the time-dependent density functional theory. All the compounds were found to be capabale to form glasses with glass transition temperatures ranging from 82° to 91°C. They exhibited high thermal stabilities, with 5% weight loss temperatures exceeding 385 °C. Strong solvatochromism arising from the intramolecular charge transfer in the excited state was evidenced by bathochromic shifts of emission maxima with increasing solvent polarity. The compounds containing acridan and phenoxazine moieties showed relatively high photoluminescence quantum yield (up to 35%) in the non-doped solid state, long delayed fluorescence lifetime (in µs range) and small singlet-triplet energy splitting (ΔEST) that is attributed to thermally activated delayed fluorescence. These compounds were tested as emissive species for the fabrication of OLEDs. The sky-blue and green devices showed maximum brightness of 3200 and 12300 cd/m2 and maximum external quantum efficiency of 6.3% and 6.9%, respectively.