Managing Locally Excited and Charge-Transfer Triplet States to Facilitate Up-Conversion in Red TADF Emitters That Are Available for Both Vacuum- and Solution-Processes

Developing red thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters for high-performance OLEDs is still facing great challenge. Herein, three red TADF emitters, pDBBPZ-DPXZ, pDTBPZ-DPXZ, and oDTBPZ-DPXZ, are designed and synthesized with same donor-acceptor (D-A) backbone with different peripheral groups attaching on the A moieties. Their lowest triplet states change from locally excited to charge transfer character leading to significantly enhance reverse intersystem crossing process. In particular, oDTBPZ-DPXZ exhibits efficient TADF feature and exciton utilization. It not only achieves an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 20.1 % in red vacuum-processed OLED, but also realize a high EQE of 18.5 % in a solution-processed OLED, which is among the best results in solution-processed red TADF OLEDs. This work provides an effective strategy for designing red TADF molecules by managing energy level alignments to facilitate the up-conversion process and thus enhance exciton harvesting.

Automated summary

Developing red thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters for high-performance OLEDs is a challenge, but the newly designed and synthesized red TADF emitters in this study show promising results with significant efficiency enhancements. Among them, oDTBPZ-DPXZ demonstrates efficient TADF feature and high exciton utilization, achieving excellent external quantum efficiency in both vacuum-processed and solution-processed OLEDs. This work provides an effective strategy for designing red TADF molecules by managing energy level alignments to enhance exciton harvesting.