Highly twisted α-diketone-based thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters and their use in organic light-emitting diodes

Abstract

We have designed a highly twisted small thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitter PXZ-α-DK based on an α-diketone (α-DK) as a strong acceptor and phenoxazine (PXZ) as a strong donor to obtain red-shifted emission in comparison with the equivalent α-diketone linked to 9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine (DMAC). The PXZ-α-DK shows emission at 586 nm and DMAC-α-DK shows emission at 548 nm in 1,3-bis(N-carbazolyl)benzene (mCP) host at 1.5 wt% doping of the emitter, with short-delayed lifetimes of 6.9 μs for PXZ-α-DK and 7.6 μs for DMAC-α-DK. Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) fabricated using these emitters show green electroluminescence at 555 nm for DMAC-α-DK, with a maximum external quantum efficiency, EQEmax, of 6.3%, and orange electroluminescence at 585 nm for PXZ-α-DK, with an EQEmax of 0.8%. We corroborate the optoelectronic properties of these emitters with DFT calculations.