Achieving efficient violet-blue electroluminescence with CIEy <0.06 and EQE >6% from naphthyl-linked phenanthroimidazole-carbazole hybrid fluorophores

In this work, we revealed a new approach for the development of efficient violet-blue emitting materials featuring a hybrid local and charge transfer (HLCT) excited state through the incorporation of naphthyl group(s) as a weak n-type pi spacer in a donor-pi-acceptor (D-pi-A) system. The resulting materials (TPINCz and TPIBNCz) show improved intramolecular charge transfer properties and highly efficient violet-blue fluorescence. It is demonstrated that the pattern of the pi spacers has significant influence on the photophysical properties. The incorporation of a naphthyl/binaphthyl spacer between the donor and acceptor moieties can alleviate the common dilemma that enhancing device performance by increasing the charge transfer excited properties often leads to red-shifted emissions. A device using TPINCz as an emissive dopant shows a violet-blue emission with CIE coordinates of (0.153, 0.059) and a record high EQE of 6.56 +/- 0.11% at a brightness of 1000 cd m(-2). To the best of our knowledge, this performance is the highest among the reported devices with CIEy <= 0.08. Our study provides a new pathway for the design of high-performance violet-blue emitters with a D-pi-A architecture in organic electroluminescence applications.