Dicyano-Imidazole-Based Host Materials Possessing a Balanced Bipolar Nature To Realize Efficient OLEDs with Extremely High Luminance

• Published in: Journal of physical chemistry. C Vol. 124; no. 37; pp. 20410 - 20423
• Main Authors: Yi, Rong-Huei, Shao, Chang-Min, Lin, Chien-Hsiang, Fang, Yu-Chuan, Shen, Hsiang-Ling, Lu, Chin-Wei, Wang, Kang-Yu, Chang, Chih-Hao, Chen, Li-Yin, Chang, Yong-Hsiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 17.09.2020
• Subjects: C: Plasmonics; Optical, Magnetic, and Hybrid Materials; electric potential difference; electrochemiluminescence; phosphorescence; physical chemistry
• ISSN: 1932-7447; 1932-7455; 1932-7455
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c05418

Most phosphorescent devices suffer from severe triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA), and the efficiency recording at high luminance is much lower than that at low luminance, making the practicality worse than expected. In this study, a series of donor–acceptor (D–A) molecules consisting of dicyano-imidazole and phenylcarbazole were synthesized and applied to the host materials. For electroluminescence applications, imM-m-Cz-based green-emitting organic light-emitting diodes show a maximum luminance of 1.68 × 105 cd m–2 at 11.2 V, which is 20% higher than that of the benchmark host 4,4′-bis­(N-carbazolyl)-1,1′-biphenyl at 13.4 V; in addition, the turn-on voltage (V on) is only 2.3 V. In terms of hole and electron mobility, imM-m-Cz shows one of the most balanced carrier mobilities in the reported literature (electron and hole mobilities of 3.64 × 10–5 and 4.23 × 10–5 cm2 V–1 s–1, respectively). The balanced carrier mobility can help expand the recombination region and thus reduce the formation of TTA. Furthermore, the high maximum luminance of about 2.80 × 105 cd m–2 obtained in an imM-m-Cz-based tandem device demonstrates a sufficiently high current density/luminance, and the peak efficiency achieves an even higher efficiency of 40.6% (1.51 × 105 cd A–1 and 98.6 lm W–1), which is among the highest reported properties based on imidazole-based host materials. Combining the balanced carrier mobility with the proper device design in this study, the efficiency roll-off under high luminance can be greatly reduced, and the practicality of the resulting phosphorescent device can be significantly improved.