Optoelectronic applications of functional materials with aggregation-induced emissions (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has drawn continuously growing attention due to its great potential in material science and biological techniques. The AIE effect is expected to conquer the notorious aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) encountered by conventional luminescent materials, and thus realize the high-performance organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) without complicated doping method. Our recent studies have demonstrated that it is feasible. The solid-state luminescent materials created by melting AIEgens with conventional chromophores that suffer from ACQ problem at the molecular levels exhibit high photoluminescence efficiency up to unity, and function efficiently as light-emitting layers in non-doped OLEDs. Tunable electroluminescence colors from blue to red and excellent efficiencies approaching theoretical limit are attained by the devices. In addition, rational modifications on AIEgens with carrier-transporting functional groups can endow the luminescent materials with not only high solid-state emission efficiencies but also good hole- or electron-transporting abilities. The non-doped bilayer OLEDs fabricated by utilizing these multifunctional materials as light-emitting and hole-transporting (electron-transporting) simultaneously afford remarkably high efficiencies. These results clearly manifest the practical utility of the AIE effect in development of active materials for OLEDs.